File-sharing religion deemed blasphemous by Swedish government

It wasn't long ago that a Swedish file-sharing collective called "The Missionary Church of Kopimism" failed in an attempt to garner official recognition as an actual religion. A recently filed second plea received the same dismissal this week. Will the group go for a holy trinity?

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The brainchild of teenage Philosophy student Isaac Gerson, the "church" made headlines in April when its petition to be considered equal to Judaic, Christian and Islamic faiths was denied by the Swedish government under the reasoning that no worship was involved in the community - despite implications on the group's official site that its rituals of file-sharing and uploading weren't all that different from traditional religious practices such as attending mass or fasting. Gerson refused to take no for an answer, subsequently filing a second request.

Buoyed by hundreds more "worshipers" and allegedly addressing the government's initial misgivings, Gerson expected his second request to garner approval. Instead, he received another rejection letter.

"We adjusted our application just the way the Swedish authorities needed, and they still denied us the right to form a church," Gerson told TorrentFreak in an interview. "We can’t really see any real reason for our denial."

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Kopimism's mantra maintains that it is indeed a religion, even if it fails to meet the legal requirements:

A religion is a belief system with rituals. The missionary kopimistsamfundet is a religious group centered in Sweden who believe that copying and the sharing of information is the best and most beautiful that is. To have your information copied is a token of appreciation, that someone think you have done something good.

Additionally, one of the group's commandments is that "the act of copying is sacred." Pirates can rest easy knowing that those illegal copies of "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" they downloaded will get them a wink and a nod from whatever God they believe in - especially if s/he doesn't buy into Michael Bay's bombastic, explosion-laden style of filmmaking. (via TorrentFreak)

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