This is a weird one. A group of Swedish copyright pirates have founded Kopimism, a strange new religion that holds copying data as their highest sacrament. Like me, you’re probably thinking, “Is this real?” Yes, it seems to be. The Swedish government recognizes Kopimism as a religion, and the church is 3000 members strong. According to an interview with the high priest of copy infringement, they “were founded about 15 months ago and… believe that information is holy and that the act of copying is holy.” The interview continues:

What are the Kopimist prayers and meditations?

We have a part of our religious practices where we worship the value of information by copying it.

You call this “kopyacting”. Do you actually meet up in a building, like a church, to undertake these rituals?

We do meet up, but it doesn’t have to be a physical room. It could be a server or a web page too.

I understand that certain symbols have special significance in Kopimism.

 Yes. There is the “kopimi” logo, which is a K written inside a pyramid a symbol used online to show you want to be copied. But there are also symbols that represent and encourage copying, for example, “CTRL+V” and “CTRL+C”.

Why is information, and sharing it, so important to you?

  Information is the building block of everything around me and everything I believe in. Copying it is a way of multiplying the value of information.

What’s your stance on illegal file-sharing?

I think that the copyright laws are very problematic, and at least need to be rewritten, but I would suggest getting rid of most of them.

So all file-sharing should be legal?

Absolutely.

My only remaining question is: what do I have to do to convert from Jediism?

[New Scientist, img]

-Jason Johnson