Swedish File-Sharers File For Religious Status 420
nloop writes "A group of file-sharers in Sweden have requested that their religion, Kopimism, be officially recognized in Sweden. Although this status has been denied once in the past the struggle for religious freedom from persecution continues. Aside from deeming CTRL+C CTRL+V as sacred symbols other beliefs include the flow of information being ethically right and closed source software being 'akin to slavery.'"
Story of Beginning in this religion (Score:5, Informative)
Don't miss out on Member of European Parliament Christian Engström's suggestion for a religious version of the Beginning [google.com] for this religion.
Short version:
1. There was chaos and soup.
2. Somebody in the soup learned to copy. Thus was Life.
3. Having learned to copy, they built magnificent things.
4. We honor the beginning by copying and building magnificent things.
Not bad, I think.
Not "winning". (Score:4, Informative)
You are free to believe in copying and preach about it all you want, but if you break the law, you will still get cuffed and jailed.
A cult may believe in human sacrifice or slavery or under-aged marriage or the execution of homosexuals. Thank god (or gov to be more accurate) it has never given them the right to do it.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Religion is not a 'get out of jail free' card (Score:5, Informative)
Something being part of your religion does not necessarily make it not illegal. In the USA, the standard used would be the Lemon test [wikipedia.org]. If file sharing was criminal-illegal (rather than civil law illegal) and the 'church' challenged this on first amendment grounds, the state would need to show:
1 the law had a secular legislative purpose
2 the law's primary effect is not to advance or inhibit religion
3 the must not result in an "excessive government entanglement" with religion
An anti file sharing law would have no trouble passing these tests.
Of course, this is all in Sweden, so different laws/precedent will apply.
Re:Them swedes. (Score:4, Informative)
copying data deprives no one of anything
What about the person/group/corporation that originally created the data? Do you think it costs no money or time to make a movie? Do they just push a button and the Automatic Movie Generator Machine System spits one out? Well that machine cost them money, too. And what about the people who built that machine. That took years of R&D.
There really is no scenario in which piracy does not deprive somebody of something. Sure, you're copying data rather than taking it, but that's why there's something called "licensing". It costs money to produce entertainment media and licensing is how you recoup your investment.
(Does this mean I agree with how the **AA are handling things? No. They're a bunch of assholes that need to be shot. But that doesn't mean piracy isn't depriving them of money. And that doesn't make Kopimism or whateverthefuck any less stupid.)
Re:Them swedes. (Score:4, Informative)
he reason people are willing to invest money in making movies is because they expect to get that money back and more from selling the right to see it
They don't make money and haven't for the longest time yet they still keep making movies so obviously they aren't doing it to make money.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting#Examples [wikipedia.org]