The file-sharing Church
The file-sharing Church of Kopimism -- that Sweden recognised as a religion in January this year -- haslaunched on US soil.
Kopimists believe that communication and sharing is sacred andneeds to be respected. They also think that it is wrong to monitorand eavesdrop on people. The movement had been trying to gainofficial recognition since 2010 before receiving official religionstatus this year.
The US branch, called the First United Church ofKopimism, has registered as a non-profit organisation with thestate of Illinois, although it hasn't yet sought recognition as areligion. In order to become a member Kopimists must copy theChurch of Kopimism's symbol -- the Holy Kopimi-pyramid whichconsists of a pyramid with the letter K inside. They can downloadit from the Church of Kopimism's server, rewrite it or send a copyto a friend.
It appears to have quietly launched in January, afterChristopher Carmean translated the church's constitution fromSwedish to English and establishing a US website. However, theorganisation has been ramping up communications over the lastcouple of weeks, addressing comments such as that Kopimism is like communism.
In a blog post, the church wrote: "We do not involve ourselveswith politics. We are interested in multiplying data and throughthis multiplication, knowledge and culture. We are not interestedin depriving one group of some subset of intellectual property forthe benefit of another. Copying is not stealing. Remixing is not stealing."
It added: "Plagiarism and the unauthorised sale of others'creative content is a completely different subject. Kopimism doesnot condone these acts. We advocate copying and sharing forreligious, not financial, reasons."
The organisation held its first service in early February,celebrating the holy transfer of information by listing the linkfor a BitTorrent file containing several Kopi-pyramid image anduser-submitted Kopimi artwork.
The church's name comes from "Kopimi", pronounced "copy me" andholds CTRL+C and CTRL+V as sacred symbols. Branches of thechurch have sprung up in 18 countries in total, including the UK,the Netherlands, Russia, Israel, France and Canada.