The Religion Based on File-Sharing Lands in North America.
You may have heard of kopimism, a belief system that insists all information should be free to copy regardless of whether it’s protected by trademark or copyright. This, of course, includes music.
The chief propigators of this dogma somehow managed to convince the government of Sweden to declare kopimism an actual religion.
The, uh. Church has been recruiting missionaries in countries around the world, including Canada. Kopimists have also landed in the US. From US News and World Report:
“Culture is something that makes people feel much better and makes people appreciate their world in a different way. Knowledge is also something we should copy regardless of the law,” says Isak Gerson, the 20-year-old founder of Kopimism. “It makes us better when we share knowledge and culture with each other.”
More than 3,500 people “like” Kopimism on Facebook, and thousands more practice its sacred ritual of file sharing. According to its manifesto, private, closed-source software code and anti-piracy software are “comparable to slavery.” Kopimist “Ops,” or spiritual leaders, are encouraged to give counsel to people who want to pirate files, are banned from recording and should encrypt all virtual religious service meetings “because of society’s vicious legislative and litigious persecution of Kopimists.”
