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Swedish File-Sharers File For Religious Status

Posted by samzenpus on from the guided-to-share dept.

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.'"

30 of 420 comments (clear)

  1. Them swedes. by unity100 · · Score: 0, Insightful

    they are at it again. defending the principles of modern society against private greed. because, most others that purported to do that, failed. like americans.

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    1. Re:Them swedes. by The+End+Of+Days · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Wait, how is desiring to collect more entertainment than could ever be consumed in a human lifetime without compensating the creators not a form of personal greed?

    2. Re:Them swedes. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You refer to this question:

      Wait, how is desiring to collect more entertainment than could ever be consumed in a human lifetime without compensating the creators not a form of personal greed?

      I guarantee it has been answered in the past ten years. You have just not been paying attention. But I will answer it again.

      Having free access to more oxygen than can be consumed in a human lifetime is not considered personal greed. Why not? Because the good is abundant. Same for data. Once it exists, it is even more abundant than oxygen. It can be duplicated endlessly without costing anyone anything. Therefore, performing such replication is not greedy.

      If my copy of it prevented you from having a copy of it, then grabbing up more than I need would be greed. Since that isn't the case, the word greed does not apply.

      There you go, answered. You might disagree (and you would be wrong) but you can no longer claim that it hasn't been answered.

    3. Re:Them swedes. by Hal_Porter · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Having free access to more oxygen than can be consumed in a human lifetime is not considered personal greed. Why not? Because the good is abundant. Same for data. Once it exists, it is even more abundant than oxygen. It can be duplicated endlessly without costing anyone anything. Therefore, performing such replication is not greedy.

      Movies aren't like oxygen. If people don't pay to watch them the businesses that make movies will do something else instead. Talking about the costs of making a copy (zero) and neglecting the cost of making the original movie (hundreds of millions of dollars) completely misses the point that the 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. If everyone pirated it rather than paying to see it there would be no reason to invest money in making future movies. Thus movies would not get made.

      So the people that pirate are reducing the chance of future movies from being made by reducing the profits on the ones that exist. They are a bit like customers that go to a restaurant and eat their fill but don't pay - in the long run they will force the restaurant out of business. That could easily be described as greedy by other non free loading patrons. Not to mention by the owner.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    4. Re:Them swedes. by mikael_j · · Score: 3, Insightful

      There really is no scenario in which piracy does not deprive somebody of something.

      Oh please, not this one again.

      If you want n dollars for a movie, I have n * 0.1 dollars and I instead copy the movie, have I deprived you of n dollars? Had I offered you 0.1 * n dollars you would've spit in my face...

      What if I copy your movie as an alternative to not watching it at all?

      These are both perfectly reasonable and likely situations.

      --
      Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
    5. Re:Them swedes. by RoFLKOPTr · · Score: 2, Insightful

      What if I copy your movie as an alternative to not watching it at all?

      Then don't watch it. The movie studios don't make money from you watching their movie, they make money from you BUYING their movie.

    6. Re:Them swedes. by mwvdlee · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If you want n dollars for a movie, I have n * 0.1 dollars and I instead copy the movie, have I deprived you of n dollars?

      Yes you have. You (as an average person) might have bought the movie at a later point in time when you did have n dollars.

      Statistically, some people will actually save up money in order to buy the movie so, statistically, you ARE depriving them of money. Not n dollars but rather n * chance_of_somebody_saving_up_money_and_buying_it_later dollars.

      Now it could be that you as an individual simply don't want to save up money in order to buy something. But if that is the case, then we're discussing moral values, not economics.

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    7. Re:Them swedes. by Hazel+Bergeron · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The main failure of the Western world is believing that you're not engaged in abuse of your fellow man just because you outsource poor treatment of workers which you would find unacceptable (and illegal) in your own country.

      If WTO wanted to live up to its ostensible aims, it would equalise the playing field across countries by requiring broadly equal worker treatment across countries engaged in free trade. In fact, all it has produced is a careful concoction of newspeak and slave management.

    8. Re:Them swedes. by sarahbau · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There really is no scenario in which piracy does not deprive somebody of something.

      Oh please, not this one again.

      If you want n dollars for a movie, I have n * 0.1 dollars and I instead copy the movie, have I deprived you of n dollars? Had I offered you 0.1 * n dollars you would've spit in my face...

      What if I copy your movie as an alternative to not watching it at all?

      These are both perfectly reasonable and likely situations.

      Not THIS argument again. People downloading movies aren't too poor to pay to watch them. They're just too cheap to pay to watch them. If something costs n dollars, and you have n*0.1 dollars, either wait until it costs less or you've saved more. It's easy to say "I wouldn't have bought it anyway," when you plan from the start to download it rather than buying it.

  2. This has gone too far by ohnocitizen · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Look I get that companies providing content (or more accurately, managing content distribution) are acting like thugs. I even agree that individual copyright violations for personal use aren't that big a deal. But are we going to go so far as to support something this ridiculous? To read summaries like this you get the sense there isn't any value to intellectual property at all. If content producers know that anything they produce is "up for grabs", what incentive do they have to keep producing? Why is the idea of purchasing intellectual property of any sort, from software to movies, "akin to slavery"? Its economic privilege to assume they can just do it "as a hobby" or "contribute to open source". Open source has a place, but so does closed source. Fighting back against individual prosecutions is worthwhile and laudable. Framing those who wish to produce intellectual property and then charge for it as "slavers" is dishonest and counterproductive.

    1. Re:This has gone too far by gman003 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It isn't supposed to succeed. It's supposed to make a point that the system as it is is completely and utterly broken, and motivate change.

    2. Re:This has gone too far by MoonBuggy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Even if you think their opinions are ridiculous (and I agree that they go a bit far, but to be honest crazy extremes on our side of the argument help to counter the crazy extremes on the other), it makes an equally good statement on the absurdity of giving religions (which, pretty much by definition, consist of the collective beliefs of a bunch of people) protected status. I'd challenge anyone to come up with a generic legal definition that encompasses major and minor world religions, without showing favouritism, but still excludes these guys.

    3. Re:This has gone too far by Sir_Lewk · · Score: 1, Insightful

      To read summaries like this you get the sense there isn't any value to intellectual property at all.

      So fucking what?

      --
      "linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
    4. Re:This has gone too far by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "If content producers know that anything they produce is "up for grabs", what incentive do they have to keep producing?"

      Honestly...for love of what they do. Most writers never get published. Most bands never achieve fame. So many original ideas for movies go unmade. These same content distributors block a large amount of content from ever getting to us. Even so, people STILL create. They write, they play, they act, they dream. Even when they KNOW for a 100% fact they will never become rich, famous or widely known, they STILL do it. Why? Seems stupid to bang your head against a wall and waste your life chasing dreams, right? Even so. They do it. They would still do it even if everyone stole their music and played it around the world. If everyone stole their story and read it everywhere. If someone else made all their movies and let everyone watch them for free.

      We're human. We eat, screw, and dream. In every sense of the words. Even crazy people sing and dance and write. Even sociopaths. Humans will always produce creative works. The need to profit from them is not the primary motivator for it. It never has been. That is a lie fed to us from the people who always stood to make the most money from creative works. The Patrons of Art. The Content Distributors. Different age, different titles, same values. To get a monetary return for funding anothers creative works.

    5. Re:This has gone too far by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 2, Insightful

      > If content producers know that anything they produce is "up for grabs", what incentive do they have to keep producing?

      Right, because money is the _only_ incentive for people to create. /sarcasm.

      Why don't you actually talk to people who create in their spare time. The ability of the human soul to express itself is driven by more then purely capitalistic greed. Apparently this paradigm is a foreign concept to you.

      > To read summaries like this you get the sense there isn't any value to intellectual property at all.

      I'll probably get downmodded for not being civil but, "No Shit, Sherlock."

      1. Imaginary Property Rights are neither property, nor rights. Audio, Video, and/or Textual information can be represented as a number. To say someone somehow "magically" "owns" ones a particular sequence of bits is assine.

      2. "Value" is _relative_ between 2 parties. What price do you do you put on something that benefits _everyone_, such as concepts like the wheel, numbers, math, formulas, the cure for cancer? So why should entertainment be treated differently? Art is for the benefit of everyone. Certain artists would even argue that once you put a price on art, it is not art; it is pseudo-art, because its purpose of bastard existance has been hi-jacked. Putting a price on something demands that the "value" is one-sided. It is perfectly valid to argue that the "value" of ownership is a myth -- the value of a soceity to freely share what it produces is priceless -- which is what the intent is here.

      > Framing those who wish to produce intellectual property and then charge for it as "slavers" is dishonest and counterproductive.

      Those who charge for "I.P." are doing it out of greed. It is time the human race grows up, and realizes there is more to life then money.

    6. Re:This has gone too far by Americano · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Those who charge for "I.P." are doing it out of greed. It is time the human race grows up, and realizes there is more to life then money.

      What a trite, mealy-mouthed platitude. Will you be the first to swear a vow of poverty and do without money or any other standard of exchange for goods & services? Or will you be one of the autocrats who "volunteers" to administer the system out of the goodness of your heart?

      Why don't you actually talk to people who create in their spare time.

      You think it's that simple, huh? Why don't you also ask those same people if they'd like to pursue their music/photography/painting/sculpting/dance/acting/whatever as a full-time profession, where they could make a living creating things that other people value?

      I bet that just-about-100% of them would say that they'd love to be able to make a living at it.

      If you neuter the ability of anybody to make a living doing creative things, then you will end up with a large amount of really bad youtube videos, some shitty "electronica" remixes, and some shitty fan fiction that was... written in peoples' spare time. I love Firefly as much as the next Slashdotter, but I don't necessarily think a world where Firefly fan fiction is the gold standard is really a great outcome. I think the word would be poorer as a result if we sacrificed things like the Godfather and Casablanca on the altar of preventing people from making a living producing their art.

      Here's the thing: if Britney Spears produces an album, and asks you to pay $15 for a copy, why do you feel entitled to the product of her efforts without giving her something of value in return? Obviously, you have received something of value - the enjoyment of the music you're listening to. If you don't believe it's worth that much money, don't pay it - but what gives you the right to say "Sorry, I don't agree with that price, but I'm going to take a copy for myself anyway?"

    7. Re:This has gone too far by JambisJubilee · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I don't see any difference between the motivations of one who would join the "Church of Filet Mingon" and any other religion (say, Christianity).

    8. Re:This has gone too far by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You probably already are, I'm writing software for a living...

      So yes, I do feel the pain of copyright infringement. But given the way copyright and IP laws are today, even I, someone benefiting from them, think they go too far.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  3. Why be such morons? by Antidamage · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is not the way to get the ethos behind file-sharing taken seriously. It's counter-productive and childish.

    1. Re:Why be such morons? by MoonBuggy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      As I mentioned in a post above, if you think their opinions on sharing are ridiculous, then it makes an excellent statement on the problems with allowing religion to be a protected class. Religion is something that a group of people happen to believe - you can't give special treatment to certain types of belief without discriminating against those who do not subscribe to those particular types.

    2. Re:Why be such morons? by MoonBuggy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Just to clarify, in case anyone gets the wrong end of the stick: I'm of the firm opinion that everyone should be able to say and believe absolutely what the hell they like, and those rights should be protected indiscriminately for all, but the problems start occurring when you offer religious organisations tax breaks, exemptions from laws applied to other organisations, and so forth.

    3. Re:Why be such morons? by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This is not the way to get the ethos behind file-sharing taken seriously. It's counter-productive and childish.

      It is, however, if they're successful, a way to enjoy the same legal protections granted to a number of other ethoses (ethoi?) which are demonstrably more counter-productive and childish than any amount of file-sharing could ever be. Which I kind of suspect is the point. "We don't care if you agree with us, just stop persecuting us" is a demand which has proven quite effective, in the civilized world, for all sorts of beliefs which previously been considered bizarre at best and criminal at worst.

      --
      The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
    4. Re:Why be such morons? by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Why be such morons? Why be counter-productive and childish? How is that different from all other religions?

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  4. Re:What do they share? by euphemistic · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So what you're trying to tell us is that it already has a lot in common with a vast array of existing religions?

  5. Re:Story of Beginning in this religion by Stormy+Dragon · · Score: 2, Insightful

    4. We honor the beginning by copying and building magnificent things.

    Oh please, 90% of the people who copy things haven't built anything, much less something that could be described as magnificent.

  6. Re:Story of Beginning in this religion by gman003 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That's not saying much. Pastafarianism, the worship of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, makes more sense than Scientology.

  7. Re:Heretics! by VortexCortex · · Score: 5, Insightful

    All who follow the mighty Jobs know that the only proper religious symbols are cmd-c, cmd-v

    All who are true practitioners remember the arcane incantations ctrl+ins and ctrl+shift+ins...

    Beware younglings, for ctrl+c or cmd+c may invoke the dark ones, who will promptly unleash their wrath and cancel your program depending on the gracious terminal that surrounds and gives meaning to your actions... At all times we must be mindful of the terminal, for it is the source of all, it permeates and binds our actions into reality.

    When in full presence of the holy terminal you must tread lightly and always remember to show your respect by donning the venerable shift key's cloak of distinction when you utter either form of the standard incantations, lest you interrupt the dark one's slumber.

    Only a false prophet claims there is but one true way. Only a fool believes such lies -- There are many paths to a single place depending on your origin.

    Also note that the good enjoy a hearty embrace -- Be wary of those that when greeted with a friendly grasp of hand, later claim you have held them wrongly.

  8. Re:Not "winning". by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    or giving alcohol to minors...

    Oh wait, I guess if you believe in transubstantiation it's not wine, but blood, so that's ok.

    Carry on.

  9. Re:Story of Beginning in this religion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    100% of people who build things, copy things.

  10. Re:Not "winning". by js_sebastian · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    Then why can churches discriminate in ways that would get any other business or organization in huge trouble? Let's see, how many female priests does your church have? Have they fired priests for coming out as homosexuals? Think that is legal?