Piracy now an official religion in Sweden!

[deeaa]

LOL this is pretty good:

My translation from news today:

An own religion for Internet pirates, 'Copism' was officially recognized as a religion in Sweden.
The church aims to work along with existing religions to spread a message which promotes the sacredness of information.

Their sacrament is, in turn, the act of copying information. The high priest, Isak Gerson, reports in Dagens Nyheter article that the main credos are copying and distributing data.
The new religion reports having 3000 members already and rapidly growing, also internationally.

[Robert]

I just read it on dn.se.

In Sweden, anybody can start a "trossamfund", which is a registered group who believe in something. It does not need to have anything to do with any holy books or churches.

Maybe I should register "TheFret.Net Believers" in Sweden?

[deeaa]

Indeed, I don't think this has anything to do with actual religions. Just another wedge to use when having to face charges in courts.

But...it can be handy, though, if it's confirmed as a religion, then you can argue you're practicing your 'religion' when copying, which may open up all kinds of interesting ways to go to court on piracy issues.

Here law basically forbids others to stop someone from practicing whatever religion they choose as long as it doesn't endanger anyone, and it is often argued where are the lines to that etc. so it can help pirates fight the evil media companies. Does it hurt media companies? Not directly. I think it is easier to argue that it doesn't, if is it argued is it OK to let someone kill animals in a certain style for instance, if that's what their beliefs mandate? Or that it is OK to allow for circumcisions of under 18-year old children? Loads of stuff that's all the time battled with in courts, so it can certainly work in piracy's favor.

'Jedi' are also a registered religion in several countries btw...somehow I doubt anyone really sends any prayers to a Sith temple, though, LOL :-)

[deeaa]

BTW what's up with the front page...the recent posts column is gone? Is it coming back?

[deeaa]

More on the issue (from the news today):

"Jokers have registered various ideas as religions for a long long time already, and as we learned a while back, in Sweden the Pastafaris, Jedis and Scientologists and such are joined by piratism under the name of Copism, which we now learn has also registered new sacraments Control-C and Control-V.

However jokingly one might think of these 'religions', this may cause interesting echoes here in Finland as well.

A representative from the police says that since Copism is registered officially as a religion in Sweden it must be considered as one here as well. And since there is no distinguishing between the hundreds of religions out there, there cannot be any discrimination between the various beliefs based on how the officials may feel of their value or truthfullness. In the eyes of the law, they must be all equal.

That leads to for instance in a possibility that anti-piracy campaigns such as 'you wouldn't steal a car...' etc. might be taken as 'hate speech' against a religious group and open it up to prosecution for rallying against a group of people due to their religious beliefs, which is of course illegal. We are eagerly awaiting for first judgements to be passed and how the situation unfolds."