Filesharing Now an Official Religion In Sweden

Is the clipboard by TheTruthIs · 2012-01-04 06:45 · Score: 5, Funny

their holy scripture?

Re:Is the clipboard by K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2012-01-04 06:50 · Score: 3, Funny

I would rather bet on the Creative Commons license. ;-)

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Ezekiel 23:20
Re:Is the clipboard by Joikas · 2012-01-04 06:55 · Score: 5, Interesting

Creative Commons license, and GPL for that matter, are pro-copyright by their very definition. Only public domain is anti-copyright.
Re:Is the clipboard by Pharmboy · 2012-01-04 06:59 · Score: 4, Funny

Depends, if they were Evangelical Kopimists, then the GNU/GPL is the only TRUE gospel. Not only do you accept It into your life, but you must spread the word in all your earthly works.
The ones that follow the Creative Commons are like the people who only go to church on Christmas and Easter. They aren't real believers, they are "just in case it is true, at least I will get into heaven" believers.

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Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Re:Is the clipboard by Pharmboy · 2012-01-04 07:04 · Score: 4, Insightful

PD isn't exactly anti-copyright. Technically, you can take a Public Domain work, change it (even a little, add a space), and copyright it yourself. It is more of a "copyright irrelevant" non-license. You don't have to worry or think about copyright at all, if you choose. Literally, you, me, and everyone here can all claim copyright on virtually the same Public Domain work, legally.
Of course, if you copyright it, you can't take away anyone's right to copy or use the Public Domain version all they want.

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Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Re:Is the clipboard by Narishma · 2012-01-04 07:15 · Score: 5, Funny

As long as Clippy isn't their prophet we are safe.

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Mada mada dane.
Re:Is the clipboard by colinrichardday · 2012-01-04 07:23 · Score: 4, Insightful

There's already a Church of GNU Emacs. One of its tenets is that if you take the Church too seriously, seek professional help.
Re:Is the clipboard by GuldKalle · 2012-01-04 07:44 · Score: 4, Insightful

Why didn't all religions have that?

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What?
Re:Is the clipboard by Pharmboy · 2012-01-04 09:36 · Score: 3, Informative

No, you can't.
Yes you can. Public domain means you give up all rights: period. This means anyone can copyright a modified version of your work, or technically, an unmodified version as well. They can't take away your giving it into the Public Domain, but once you put it in the Public Domain you have ZERO RIGHTS to enforce it, because it is no longer licensed by you. Only those "harmed" could ever sue for their right to use Public Domain. Do your homework AC. Public Domain means it is owned by EVERYONE, and EVERYONE can do ANYTHING they want with it. Including copyrighting their own version of it.

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Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Re:Is the clipboard by istartedi · 2012-01-04 10:10 · Score: 3, Insightful

No, you can't. If you take a public domain work and change it only a little bit, you've created a derivative work of the public domain work, and the expired copyright that once applied to the public domain work now applies to your new derivative work
Public Domain isn't like GPL. There's no "copyleft" or "contamination". The original text of the Consitution for example is Public Domain. You can't copyright it. OTOH, if you have James Earl Jones read it you can copyright the recording under the fullest extent of copyright law. You could even print it in a fancy font and copyright that. The closest thing to "adding a space" would be to take a photograph of it and copyright it. You can do that. The only difference between your copy and anybody elses would be subtle variations of color in the noise bits of the image. They're all yours, the original document and its text is all ours.

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For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Re:Is the clipboard by wedge3d · 2012-01-04 13:21 · Score: 5, Funny

Every byte is sacred.
Every byte is great.
If a byte is wasted,
God gets quite irate.

It could be worse by obarthelemy · 2012-01-04 06:46 · Score: 5, Insightful

They could preach slavery, rape, murder, hating on gays/women/divorcees.
Oh wait, that would probably let them justify having a state on top of a religion ^^

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The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.

Re:It could be worse by JimCanuck · 2012-01-04 07:13 · Score: 5, Insightful

Yes because slavery and lack of rights didn't exist under the "peaceful" way of life when the Dalai Lama was in charged of Tibet./sarcasm
Re:It could be worse by gstoddart · 2012-01-04 07:24 · Score: 5, Insightful

Only so in the western world. Buddhist countries, especially Theravada ones, lack that. That's why they're much more saner religions than western ones.
And yet, it's illegal to even criticize the Monarchy in Thailand, Myanmar is a military dictatorship, and Cambodia had some of the worst atrocities this century.
No religion (or country, or ethnic group) is above all of this crap ... granted, Buddhism doesn't have as much of a bent towards such things, but that doesn't mean that cultural attitudes don't get wrapped up in such thing.
But, really, I've read stories about monks in Thailand (not to single them out) being involved in all sorts of things. I've even read stories of two sects openly fighting for control of temples because money was at stake.
I wouldn't be so quick to believe that Buddhism (even Theravada) makes one immune to this kind of thing. Human nature means it is always there.
It's easy enough to call yourself a practitioner of any religion and then proceed to all sorts of bad things in that name of that religion.

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Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Re:It could be worse by icebraining · 2012-01-04 08:31 · Score: 4, Informative

I didn't realise Christianity had its own state???
It does, it's called State of the City of the Vatican (Stato della CittÃ del Vaticano). The Pope exercises principal legislative, executive, and judicial power over it.

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Dilbert RSS feed

The result will be deadly by Ukab+the+Great · 2012-01-04 06:48 · Score: 5, Funny

sectarian violence between Kopimists and the ABBAnites over lost royalty tithe income.

so. by jellomizer · 2012-01-04 06:50 · Score: 4, Insightful

So he who toil and grule for months on end to make good to benefit many... Shalt not receive reward or compensation, for they create media and that shall be bread enough alone.

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If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.

Re:so. by prakslash · 2012-01-04 08:45 · Score: 3, Insightful

Huh? Your analogies are all screwed up. You provide a "service" as a freelance programmer to do custom jobs. The software copies that your previous company sold were standardized "products". Your previous company didn't screw itself because it was "creating artificial scarcity". It screwed itself because it got greedy and charged more than its competition selling a similar product.

According to your model, if a customer needs a good text editor, they should hire a programmer to write a new one or to create one from existing code? Or, should they just obtain an existing one made by a company that already makes good text editors? May be you will say, they should obtain the existing one but they shouldn't have to pay for it? Well, how does the text editor company ensure that it recovers its costs without someone else buying the first copy for $39.95 and freely distributing to everyone else? That is why copyright laws have a place even for digital media.

As for being successful in the business, the market already works: you make something and you sell it to cover your costs and make a profit. To survive, you do it better than your competition. It doesn't mean you have to adopt a "pirate model".

Joke by Overly+Critical+Guy · 2012-01-04 06:51 · Score: 3, Interesting

Does anyone really take things like this seriously? This and the "Pirate Party" only hurt copyright reform movements. Not to mention that if "everything should be shared freely online without copyright", the GPL wouldn't be able to protect code anymore.

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"Sufferin' succotash."

Re:Joke by McGuirk · 2012-01-04 07:24 · Score: 3, Informative

Getting rid of copyright would mean that the GPL wouldn't need to exist anymore.
Re:Joke by muuh-gnu · 2012-01-04 07:32 · Score: 5, Insightful

> only hurt copyright reform movements.
How exactly? Your alleged "serious" copyright reform movements never achieved anything of significance. The Pirate Party has achieved siginificant visibility in Europe. They have seats in the European Parliament, in the Berlin parliament and will probably get seats in the German federal parliament next year. They have already forced major parties to seriously rethink their internet policies or risk losing the whole sub-30 generation.
Re:Joke by ACS+Solver · 2012-01-04 10:30 · Score: 4, Informative

Having recently started living in Sweden, I familiarized myself with the Pirate Party a bit more closely. The claim that they want to abolish copyright is simply false - they are proposing a reform, although admittedly one that curbs copyright very significantly. They do want to get rid of patents entirely, believing they hinder innovation. What they want to do with copyrights is to reduce them to 5 years, after which works get released into the public domain. 5 years is a short period, but it differs very significantly from the idea of abolishing copyright.

Religious Freedom by ZerXes · 2012-01-04 06:56 · Score: 3, Informative

This might be interesting, due to some Swedish laws on religious freedom the Swedish police might have problems trying to seize the servers and computers of this followers as they are only practising their religion.

Re:Religious Freedom by init100 · 2012-01-04 15:30 · Score: 3, Interesting

Actually, they do. In Sweden, hate speech is illegal except if you do it because of your religion. A few years ago, a pentecostal pastor said that gays were "a cancer in society". He was charged with hate speech and convicted, but the conviction was overturned because freedom of religion trumps other laws (including laws against hate speech) in the EU.
There have been other instances. Last year, a muslim man was applying for a job at a company. At the interview, he refused to take the hand of the female boss while shaking the hands of other men. When the Swedish Public Employment Service because of this incident concluded that this man didn't make a reasonable effort to get a job, they retracted his social security payments. He complained to the public anti-discrimination board and they filed suit against the employment service, charging that he had been discriminated against because of his religion, a court case which they won. That he himself had discriminated against the female boss because of her sex was obviously considered irrelevant, as religion and multiculturalism apparently trumps equality between the sexes in Sweden.

Christianity and broadcast rights by Openstandards.net · 2012-01-04 06:57 · Score: 3

I was just saying the other day that the Bible could of been harder to create if someone claimed broadcast rights when Jesus spoke to crowds, not to mention copyright restrictions with no one able to locate the authors or figure out who inherited their rights when they died. So, perhaps this is in line with Christianity.

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Open Standards Portal

Re:Christianity and broadcast rights by Richard_at_work · 2012-01-04 07:29 · Score: 4, Interesting

Jesus did die, he rose from the grave by conquering death - according to the Bible, it's one of the key tenants of Christianity. Now, how would copyright law handle that?

Religious Prosecution of File Sharers by prakslash · 2012-01-04 06:57 · Score: 4, Insightful

Although they are only preaching "harmless" digital copying, followers of a religion can still be prosecuted for their actual practice if it is deemed criminal under the prevailing laws.

"Freedom of Religion" rights enshrined in the constitutions of most countries rarely provide for exceptions to go against the prevailing laws. So, this new religion won't change anything. A better path is being followed by the Pirate Party who actually seeks to change the prevailing laws around information copying.

Re:Religious Prosecution of File Sharers by SuricouRaven · 2012-01-04 07:10 · Score: 4, Interesting

That depends upon how good the religion's lobbyists and lawyers are. The US has a few cases of that sort of thing - surprisingly, not all Christian. A native american tribe managed to successfully challenge the Migratory Bird Act so they could sacrifice federally-protected golden eagles as part of their rituals, and won. The Amish are very well known for it, because their lifestyle has a great many minor conflicts - things like requiring all buildings be produced entirely within the community, which means they can't use fireproofing treatments for wood required by state law. It really comes down, as so much does, to a combination of legal skill, funding and the luck of finding a sympathetic court.
Re:Religious Prosecution of File Sharers by Blue+Stone · 2012-01-04 07:18 · Score: 3, Insightful

I dunno. Seems to me that religious institutions get plenty of opt-outs form the law when it comes to discrimination against gays.
The rule seeming to be that if you codify your prejudice, it's OK.

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Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
Re:Religious Prosecution of File Sharers by Capt+James+McCarthy · 2012-01-04 07:35 · Score: 4, Insightful

"Fun fact: In Finland, the only person you should confess a murder to is a priest. Even the court can't force a priest to break the secrecy."
Better fact: The best kept secret is the one that no one else knows about.

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There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
Re:Religious Prosecution of File Sharers by AliasMarlowe · 2012-01-04 07:54 · Score: 4, Funny

"Fun fact: In Finland, the only person you should confess a murder to is a priest. Even the court can't force a priest to break the secrecy."
Better fact: The best kept secret is the one that no one else knows about.
So then you kill the priest immediately after confession. Which gives you another murder to confess, presumably to another priest. The Catholics have over 400000 of them, so you won't run out for some time.

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Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Re:Religious Prosecution of File Sharers by Blue+Stone · 2012-01-04 07:56 · Score: 3, Insightful

>Not having to perform a marriage ceremony is not a violation of someone's rights.
Not having to = allowed to discriminate against. Have I got that right? Thought so.
Tell you what, I'll be prepared to have a serious discussion with you when you're prepared to defend the 'right' of others to discriminate against you in the same way as you wish to discriminate against others. That sounds fair, doesn't it? Quid pro quo and all that.

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Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
Re:Religious Prosecution of File Sharers by jpapon · 2012-01-04 08:03 · Score: 4, Insightful

Well, if the mother asks for it, and the doctor is the only one available to perform the procedure, then he should be forced to, or forced to retire. The doc signed up to be the caretaker of health for the community, and must perform his duties, or step down. You seem to think the doctor's rights as the health professional of a community supersede the rights of a woman towards her body. The doc can't push his ethics on others, he has no right to force a woman to keep her baby. He can do his job, or he can do what everyone else does, and quit. Simply saying "no" is not an option, and sets a dangerous precedent. What happens when the doc declines to give gays treatment for STDs? Or any other of the myriad of times when an MD is forced to treat someone whos religious views clash with their own?

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-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
Re:Religious Prosecution of File Sharers by Bacon+Bits · 2012-01-04 09:00 · Score: 4, Insightful

I think his point is that the SlashDot community tends to conflate "Christian" with "fundamentalist" and "evangelical," which, while a number of very vocal Christians are are not the entirety of the Christian community. The fact that this thread starts with the comment "They could preach slavery, rape, murder, hating on gays/women/divorcees. Oh wait, that would probably let them justify having a state on top of a religion ^^" and nobody has stood up to denounce that hatred itself is indicative of the issue. Topics about religion on SlashDot invariably involve these kinds of generalizations about "Christians" or religious types in general and nobody seems to have a problem with it.
The truth is that religion itself has nothing to do with slavery, rape, murder, or hatred of certain groups. Dogmatic thinking (religious or otherwise), willful ignorance, sectarianism, and xenophobia do. The very act of denigrating "Christians" -- whether with direct attacks like this or with callous mocking like FSM and invisible unicorns -- and lumping them together in this fashion as rapists, murderers, slavers, etc. perpetuates the exact same behavior here that resulted in these atrocities.
Religion isn't what's wrong. Religion is not evil. Hate is evil. Perpetuating misunderstanding and resentment is evil. Humans are evil, not organizations.

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The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
Re:Religious Prosecution of File Sharers by SuricouRaven · 2012-01-04 09:19 · Score: 4, Informative

That's because I was slightly wrong. I was conflating two different but quite similar cases.

The eagle case was one Mr. Hardman (http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=search&case=/data2/circs/10th/994210.html). I remembered one crucial detail incorrectly though: He actually lost in court. The case I was confusing it with was one of those he cited as precident, Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Lukumi_Babalu_Aye_v._City_of_Hialeah). The religion in question there wasn't native american, but a decendant of an African religion requiring animal sacrifice. In that case, they won, and the ordinance was struck down as unconstitutional.

The MBA actually *does* have an exception for native american religions, but Hardman didn't qualify as he was not a legal member of one of the authorised tribes.

It can be so hard to keep all these cases straight when citeing from memory. I am not a lawyer though, I just debate this stuff a lot on the internet.
Re:Religious Prosecution of File Sharers by gknoy · 2012-01-04 09:22 · Score: 4, Insightful

An officer of the state, however, is acting as more than an individual, and should not be allowed to discriminate.
So, your local priest or rabbi might decline to marry you and your (hypothetical) gay fiancee, but I dislike the idea of the local judge or magistrate declining to do so.
Re:Religious Prosecution of File Sharers by jpapon · 2012-01-04 09:28 · Score: 3, Interesting

And is it "entitlement" to expect firemen to put out a fire, even if their religious views conflict with those of the homeowners? Doctors are public servants, they have obligations to their community.

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-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
Re:Religious Prosecution of File Sharers by dmbasso · 2012-01-04 10:13 · Score: 3, Informative

The fact that this thread starts with the comment "They could preach slavery, rape, murder, hating on gays/women/divorcees. Oh wait, that would probably let them justify having a state on top of a religion ^^" and nobody has stood up to denounce that hatred itself is indicative of the issue.
No, it is indicative that people know what is written in the Christian Bible (and other religious books based on those ancient scriptures). Do we need to repeat ourselves and explicitly point the references for those atrocious acts in that book?

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`echo $[0x853204FA81]|tr 0-9 ionbsdeaml`@gmail.com
Re:Religious Prosecution of File Sharers by apcullen · 2012-01-04 10:28 · Score: 3, Insightful

This is one of the most ridiculous slashdot comments I have ever heard. Religions have always been allowed to discriminate.

Should a rabbi be forced to perform a wedding ceremony for me then, even if I'm not Jewish?
Re:Religious Prosecution of File Sharers by jpapon · 2012-01-04 10:43 · Score: 3, Insightful

The world doesn't owe me, but firefighters, doctors, policemen etc do owe me to do the job they signed up to do. Doctors have an obligation to treat patients, and if they don't want to, that's fine. They just shouldn't be doctors anymore.

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-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
Re:Religious Prosecution of File Sharers by roman_mir · 2012-01-04 10:59 · Score: 3, Insightful

If you are a male, have you ever discriminated against a female for a potential relationship based on anything, her looks, age, race, religion, job, status, anything?
If you are a heterosexual male, have you ever discriminated against a potential relationship with gay males?
If you are an employee, have you ever discriminated against your potential employer based on the offered pay, conditions, type of work, location, etc.?
If you are an employer, have you ever discriminated against your potential employee based on salary expectations, conditions, type of work, location, etc.?
I can go on forever here, but you are not seeing the forest for the woods.

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You can't handle the truth.

Re:Site is down right now. by itchythebear · 2012-01-04 07:07 · Score: 3, Funny

came here to see the violence inherent in the system
left satisfied.

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If what I just said sounded like a troll, it was probably just a failed attempt at humor.

Re:Site is down right now. by cheesecake23 · 2012-01-04 07:08 · Score: 4, Informative

Since their webpage is slashdotted, here is the official press release from the Church of Kopimism:

The Church of Kopimism is recognized by the state of Sweden

Just before Christmas, the Swedish governmental agency Kammarkollegiet registered the Church of Kopimism as a religious organisation. This means that Sweden is the first country to recognize kopimism as a religion.

The Church of Kopimism have tried to become registered as a religious organisation by Kammarkollegiet for more than a year.

- Since Kammarkollegiet has been strict with formalities, we had to apply three times, a happy Gustav Nipe - board chairman for the organisation - says. He continues, I think it might have something to do with the governmental organisations abiding by a very copyright friendly attitude, with a twisted view on copying.

For the Church of Kopimism, information is holy and copying is a sacrament. Information holds a value, in itself and in what it contains, and the value multiplies through copying. Therefore, copying is central for the organisation and its members.

Being recognized by the state of Sweden is a large step for all of kopimi. Hopefully, this is one step towards the day when we can live out our faith without fear of persecution, says Isak Gerson, spiritual leader of the Church of Kopimism.

The Church of Kopimism is a religious organisation with roots from 2010. The organisation formalizes a community that's been well spread for a long time already. The community of kopimi requires no formal membership. You just have to feel a calling to worship what is the holiest of the holiest, information and copy. To do this, we organize kopyactings - religious services - where the kopimists share information with eachother through copying and remix.

Copy and seed.

Falkvinge on Kopimism by SgtChaireBourne · 2012-01-04 07:22 · Score: 3, Informative

Rick Falkvinge of the Swedish Pirate Party has a short writing on it, "Filesharing Approved as an Official Religion in Sweden".

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Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.

Kreatism by poity · 2012-01-04 07:28 · Score: 3, Insightful

If only they'd get behind a religion of fervent creativity, production, and free dissemination of their collective work. This freeloader image they give off will hurt their cause more than help it.

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your thin skin doesn't make me a troll

Great idea by fiannaFailMan · 2012-01-04 07:29 · Score: 4, Interesting

If a pyramid scheme can give itself a fancy name like Scientology and claim the status of religion and get the free pass that goes with it, why shouldn't file-sharers? If anything I hope this highlights the undue respect that is given to religion and the inappropriate treatment of "faith" as a virtue.

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Drill baby drill - on Mars

Cryogenics, undead and broadcast rights by oneiros27 · 2012-01-04 07:43 · Score: 3, Interesting

You bring up an interesting point ... but he did die, and was resurrected, so there *was* a time of death to begin the timer ticking for the fixed term.*

But if someone's brought back to life after a long period (eg, cryogenically frozen and we find a way to restore it), does the 'fixed term' reset, or did their time frozen get subtracted from when they die the second time? (eg, you get frozen, then thawed 40 years later ... then die 20 years later, do you get 70 years from then, or 30 (remaining of the 70), or 10 (the counter never stopped)?

And what does this mean for zombies, vampires and the other undead? I mean, the current wording is:

endures for a term consisting of the life of the author and 70 years after the authorâ(TM)s death.

So, as there's a gap between their life and their death, what does this mean for holders of copyright who become vampires? (zombies might not be an issue, as they died and were re-animated)

* Unless you go with the theory that bungled the crucifixtion and took him down when he was simply conconcious, so he never died, and the shroud of turin was evidence of a warm body.

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Build it, and they will come^Hplain.

Re:Site is down right now. by Darinbob · 2012-01-04 07:48 · Score: 3, Insightful

But what actual benefits are there to being recognized officially as a religion? I presume some tax benefits but that applies to any charity or non-profit entity.

Great! by RyuuzakiTetsuya · 2012-01-04 07:51 · Score: 3, Funny

now who do I pray to to get more seeders on my torrents?

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Non impediti ratione cogitationus.

Re:Site is down right now. by StripedCow · 2012-01-04 09:00 · Score: 3, Funny

But what actual benefits

They're now allowed to, every hour, generate excessively loud noise for a couple of minutes. Just like the church in my street.

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If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.

Re:Oy. by PPH · 2012-01-04 09:12 · Score: 3, Insightful

Religions aren't things you make up to get around laws in order to steal property.

Missed the bit in history class about the Holy Roman Empire?

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Have gnu, will travel.

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Filesharing Now an Official Religion In Sweden

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