Sweden Declares File-Sharing Church a Religion

Our server, who art in Scandinavia, hallowed be thy piracy...

Ever-progressive Sweden has officially recognized Kopimism – a belief system started by a philosophy student that claims file-sharing is a religious act – as a religion. Founded by 19-year-old Isak Gerson in 2010, Kopimism is based on the tenet that sharing content online, regardless of whether it's copyrighted, is the highest form of praise for that piece of content (take that, imitation), and that the free flow of information is sacred. The church's holy symbols are, appropriately, CTRL+C and CTRL+V, the keyboard shortcuts for copying and pasting. Further, they term the sharing of information as "kopyacting", the "holiest of the holiest" means of worshipping. Their website has since crashed due to overwhelming traffic, but you can read their news release proclaiming the acceptance of their faith here. Whether this means Kopimi will be able to cite freedom of religion as a defence against illegal file-sharing isn't quite clear, but if this SOPA bill passes through the U.S. Congress, Sweden might soon become for file-sharers what Canada once was for draft-dodgers.