Thursday, January 5, 2012

New religion: Copyism

Or more exactly Kopimism because it has been recognized first in Sweden. The religion holds file sharing and open access as sacred and considers Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V as holy signs. Yea, why not: if a torture instrument or a meteorite can be holy icons, why not copy-paste symbology? After all, life and the world are for free and a clear case of imperfect copy-pasting, ask a bacterium if you don't believe me.

More at BBC (although be warned that it's a rather dismissive and stupidly negative article indicating the lack of spiritual respect by the author, much more concerned about that Capitalist robbery that is intellectual property wrongs).

The church's site is this one, although it's not available but as a static page as I write this, because of excessive sudden traffic.

Their last press release was:

The Church of Kopimism is recognized by the state of Sweden

Just before Christmas, the Swedish governmental agency Kammarkollegiet registered the Church of Kopimism as a religious organisation. This means that Sweden is the first country to recognize kopimism as a religion.

The Church of Kopimism have tried to become registered as a religious organisation by Kammarkollegiet for more than a year.

- Since Kammarkollegiet has been strict with formalities, we had to apply three times, a happy Gustav Nipe - board chairman for the organisation - says. He continues, I think it might have something to do with the governmental organisations abiding by a very copyright friendly attitude, with a twisted view on copying.

For the Church of Kopimism, information is holy and copying is a sacrament. Information holds a value, in itself and in what it contains, and the value multiplies through copying. Therefore, copying is central for the organisation and its members.

Being recognized by the state of Sweden is a large step for all of kopimi. Hopefully, this is one step towards the day when we can live out our faith without fear of persecution, says Isak Gerson, spiritual leader of the Church of Kopimism.

The Church of Kopimism is a religious organisation with roots from 2010. The organisation formalizes a community that's been well spread for a long time already. The community of kopimi requires no formal membership. You just have to feel a calling to worship what is the holiest of the holiest, information and copy. To do this, we organize kopyactings - religious services - where the kopimists share information with eachother through copying and remix.

Copy and seed.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Please, be reasonably respectful when making comments. I do not tolerate in particular sexism, racism nor homophobia. The author reserves the right to delete any abusive comment.

Comment moderation before publishing is... ON