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File-Sharing Church Weds First Couple

Earlier this year the Church of Kopimism was approved by the authorities as an official religion. Since then, the movement has gathered thousands of believers across the world and two of them have now entered into a “Kopimist” marriage. The Church encourages the newlyweds to “copy and remix some DNA-cells and create a new human being.”

weddingAll around the world file-sharers are being chased by anti-piracy outfits and the authorities. But while copyright holders are often quick to label file-sharers as pirates, there is a large group of people who actually consider copying to be a sacred act.

To emphasize the holiness of copying, philosophy student Isaac Gerson started the Church of Kopimism in Sweden. After a rough start with two failed applications, the new religion was finally recognized by the authorities in January.

For a church that holds CTRL+C and CTRL+V as sacred symbols it is no surprise that the word of this new religion spread quickly. In recent months it expanded globally, from the United States to Estonia. All followers believe that copying and sharing is the most beautiful thing in the world.

This belief in sharing is not restricted to files, code and information, but also applies to love. It was only a matter of time before the first Kopimist couple would become married, and last weekend this joyful union took place at the Share conference in Belgrade.

On stage, a Romanian woman and an Italian man were joined in a holy Kopimist act. Both promised to share the rest of their lives together and to uphold the highest sharing standards.

The Church was delighted to bring the news and commented: “We are very happy today. Love is all about sharing. A married couple share everything with each other.”

Like any other matrimony, a Kopimism marriage is bound by rules. The Church of Kopimism allows the couple to share their love with others, as long as those others don’t steal it. Most importantly, however, they have to copy and remix themselves.

“Hopefully, they will copy and remix some DNA-cells and create a new human being. That is the spirit of Kopimism. Feel the love and share that information. Copy all of its holiness.”

Or to put it in the words of another famous religion.

“Be fruitful and multiply, teem on the earth and multiply in it.”

Amen.

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  • Kim Dotcodotuk

    I assume the hymns they sang were 8-bit tracks?

    • Not relevant / funny ? wtf

      NO !

    • Anonymous

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      • Anonymous

         what link?

      • Josh

        Sir spammer, go fuck yourself.

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  • Cavelord

    With wording like that, another “hokey” religion will die out. I remember a Church of the Fonz somewheres in my textbooks….or was it TV?

    • Anyone

      all religion is “hokey”

    • Anonymous

       Back to your cave, Troll.

      • Cavelord

        Ah….that’s how this site is going. I laugh at the religion because it uses phases like  ”copy and remix some DNA-cells and create a new human being” and it wants to be taken seriously. If the pirate party used phrases like that, I wouldn’t take them seriously either, and yet I’m just the opposite.. I’m labeled a troll. Hmmm…nice. FOAD. Maybe one shouldn’t be a sheeple and automatically call one a troll?

        • Guest

          Hahahaha, how fucking stupid ARE you? 

          The phrase ”copy and remix some DNA-cells and create a new human being” is actually factual. Real religions use completely insane phrases like “Jesus Christ died for our sins”, and yet millions of people follow them and they’re taken absurdly seriously.

          Kopimi revolves around the simple, secular concept that sharing is caring.  Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Catholicism etc. revolve around psychotic magical bullshit that makes denying objective reality a prerequisite for believing in them. And KOPIMI is the one you call “hokey”?

          Uh, yeah. Go back to your cave.

        • Anonymous

          FOAD?
          ROFL!! is more like it!

          As you are entitled to your lame opinion, so am I. Troll.  Odd how my original comment telling you   “Back to your cave, Troll”  is no longer there.

          So, as I stated before, back to your cave, Troll.  

          And for the record, every religion is a cult, EXCEPT your own, right Cavelord???????

        • Danny

           The difference between a cult and a religion is political power. Cults generally have none where as religions do!

          Kopimi is mirrored by the pirate party in most beliefs so I guess it is more of a religion.

        • Anonymous

          As compared to the words “This is my flesh…”?

          Honestly, I can’t disagree with you. Except for one thing. I find far far worse insanities practiced in established world religions on a daily basis.

          The old testament – especially the parts encouraging putting babies to the sword or sleeping with your daughters – is a fair hoot.

    • Cavelord

      Exorcise Chris Dodd, MAFIAAs and all those copyright trolls they’re inside me cast them away! Help me please…

      • asdf

         You’re schizophrenic, you need a psychiatrist.

  • Anonymous

    I assume they encourage DNA sharing & distribution?

    • Eldritch

      You’re thinking of the Church of Bukkake.

      • Danny

         Tea was just spat out over my keyboard in a similar vein.

      • Anonymous

        That isn’t a church so much as a subsect of shintoism.

  • Beaver

    if it’s not a troll, im impressed

    • Respekk

      If it is a troll , I’m more impressed !

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  • Yipee

    I took a crap today and out come the Hadopi :D

    • NOT anti-capitalist

      Hadopi – A law AGAINST people, for the possible profit of a few.
      The people would never make a law like that up !

      Americans will now see the evil that the dreaded socialism brings.

      People should not be given power ,only the rich elite should create laws.

      Socialism is bad …see !

      Raising taxes on the rich is bad …see !

      Increasing social spending is bad ….see !

      Creating 60,000 teaching jobs is bad …see !

      Americans , is Socialism bad ?
      ( tell me in a few months after you watch how France pans out )

      • Shita-Tapeworm

         You dropped your tin foil hat.

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  • Snufkin

    If I may play the devil’s advocate for a moment:

    Is marriage really in line with the values of the Kopimist Church? I mean isn’t marriage a sort of exclusive monopoly that restricts sharing.

    • wtf???

       I marriage in kopimist church for only a couple or it can be a whole swarm? (including leechers)

      • Anonymous

        Good question. Someone should mail pastor Gerson on the church views on polyamory.

        I’m guessing the church may have liberal views on this but that state/national law may differ in opinion.

    • griffin

      It isn’t if marriages of more than two people are allowed.

      • None

        that depends…
        a religion is a set of rules…
        so one religion can redefine the rules of marriage to include as many ppl as it wants…

    • Lord of the Files

      Your thinking of a completely different religion (which has never stopped anyone from actually sharing I might add). :p

    • Anonymous

      Think it’s more like a two person seedbox…….

      • http://plankhead.com Zacqary Adam Green

        Wouldn’t it only be two-person if it were a same-sex male marriage?

        And assuming they’re both switches?

    • Anonymous

      Well, no. It’d be more like very private LAN.

      Which sort of makes sense. 

  • Yipee

    Who’s the pope for this religion?

    • TjSmith365

      Why Do you need a pope?

      • Yipee

        Cuz I have things I need to consult for like VPN and Torrents

        • - Share the lulz -

          bullshit…. You just want to confess to buying crap movies every week.

          You actions will not forgotten.
          You will not be forgiven
          Expect that shit for free

          OK

    • griffin

      internet

      • Yipee

        Is His name is Google?

        • asdf

           No, Google is Satan.

    • - Share the lulz -

      We should anoint Chris Dodd –

      Every time he mentions pirates – we praise him for the publicity

      • Me

        Exorcise Chris Dodd!

      • Anon1

        Or better yet, the Chris Dodd drinking game! Every time he blames piracy for loss of revenue: take a shot. Every time he says something stupid: take a shot. We won’t have any brain cells left within one day.

        • Chris Dog Doo

          Fuck that !
          I am too young to die from an alcohol overdose

        • Anonymous

          Sounds like an amusing way of suicide…except for one thing. If we have to drink every time Chris Dodd blames piracy for anything you’d have to be Bill Gates to afford the tab.

    • Anonymous

      Don’t know who the Pope is….but, do beleive that Chris Dodd will be elected Anti-Christ……

      • Anonymous

        Well, I will certainly give at least a passing nod to a religion which puts the office of Anti-Christ up for general election…

  • ann

    is this anymore stupid than christanity,a man appeared 2,000 yrs ago to die for our sins,crazy stuff altogether

    • - Share the lulz -

      It’s less stupid actually – No faith required !

  • harry krishna

    my genes are more of a mashup than the result of sharing

    • Anonymous

      Nope…..it’s the wild and wooly sharing that did it…….

  • Anonymous

    I have a real problem with kopimism, namely the holy symbols.

    I still come from a paradigm where in computing, “Ctrl-C” means “Abort”…

    • Guest

      Can I down-vote this for stupidity?

      Get out of here with your Linux shit,
      thats almost as bad as that “Oh noes, backspace isnt for going back-a-page, you gotta hit this certain key sequence” shit

      • Anonymous

        Get out of here with your Windows crap. Microsoft screws up with W8, and everyone migrates to *nix with Steam for Linux.

        • Old argument gets OLD

          Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo………….

          We are descending to it yet again. Entropy creating another win/Linux/mac war.

          Please no flaming past this point !

        • Guest

           >he thinks just because linux has steam its going to have games

          Ahahahaha

        • None

          another penguin to jump out a window,
          and land in a dumpster full of rotting apples.

      • Guest2

        Well… you can use Ctrl-C to abort programs in Windows command prompt too, you know…

        “Control-C as an abort command was popularized by TOPS-20 and TOPS-10 and adopted to other systems including Unix, and Digital Equipment operating systems from which it was copied to CP/M and thus to MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ctrl-C)

      • Anonymous

        No you can’t. You can post some inflammatory drivel as a reply though…oh, i see you already did…:)

        And what you said is not the point. The point is that ctrl-C can have radical different meanings. Just like that chinese pictogram which can be translated as both “risk” and “opportunity”.

    • Anonymous

      Don’t worry.

      For me that means Ctrl+Alt+Backspace for emergencies. At least I don’t have fglrx destroying xorg.conf. yet again.

      • Anonymous

        Meh. GPU drivers are still the bane of Linux. You’d think ATI/AMD could make the effort…

        • Anonymous

          NVIDIA’s drivers work properly though…
          back on topic.

    • Anyone

      and once upon a time a cross was a symbol of torture and death

      it still is, but not that literal anymore

      • Anonymous

        Which one? The roman cross, the teutonic solar wheel or the korean form of the swastika…?

        Any symbol has many different meanings. Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V will make anyone familiar with command lines lol since there is a quite valid alternative intertpretation. Doubly hilarious if you use the symbol in order to bless a marriage.

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/AQPACWH6AX4ZHMF4KJNR656CKE Ellen

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    • Guest

      second time i’ve seen your spam on torrentfreak -_- stop it

  • Matelinux

    Wow… actually it’s a very smart move, if they get caught by the FBI sharing the Avengers Movie they can alegate its a Religion persecution… Nice!

    • asdf

      Except there’s no FBI in Sweden and there’s no Church of Kopimism in the USA.

      • Matelinux

        OH? So Kim Dotcom it was living in the USA? and the FBI it was not there..

    • Guest

       First, this isn’t an area where the FBI would get involved (not in the U.S.). Second, religious beliefs are very rarely an excuse for breaking the law. Catholic communion and some uses of peyote are some of the only exceptions made. Otherwise, religious people still have to follow the law.

      Example; some religions (not naming names) used to say that black people were inferior to whites. That didn’t stop their members from being prosecuted under anti-discrimination laws when they refused to give them jobs or serve them in businesses.

      • Phish

        Ah, you forget the UDV with DMT. I think that is the best one.

      • blah

        You seem to have forgotten US laws now apply everywhere.

        • Guest

           Even assuming that this is the case, what I said is still correct. The FBI is a purely domestic agency. As in, it has no business anywhere outside the U.S. for pretty much any reason. That’s the domain of the CIA.

      • Anonymous

        Actually that’s not quite true. Both Islam and Judaism have in most countries managed to practice circumcision legally on infants. And when you get right down to it, consider how the law and the community would react if you instead tried to, say, have the infants ears pierced or it’s body tattooed.

        Religion can and does implement as taken-for-granted customs which would NEVER fly under law. Regularly.

        • Guest

          “consider how the law and the community would react if you instead
          tried to, say, have the infants ears pierced or it’s body tattooed.”

          That has been found to be legal. The community may not be happy about it, but it is still legal.

      • Matelinux

         Still a great wall to digg for the prosecutors

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  • http://twitter.com/icanhazsake Ninja

    Hopefully, they will copy and remix some DNA-cells and create a new human being.

    Dunno about creating a new human being but sharing bodily fluids through a direct connection is just damn good. I think I found my new religion.

    • Anonymous

      I just hope they have updated drivers for the USB port and dongle. compatibility issues can be a royal PITA…

  • Hayden

    How long until they start making copies of each other?

  • Pingback: File-Sharing Church Weds First Couple | TorrentFreak | Web.3D.Law

  • Anonymous

    This is just….. weird

  • Anon

    This is so pathetic it’s hard to know where to begin.

    • http://twitter.com/icanhazsake Ninja

      I’m not sure if it’s serious or not, however we shouldn’t see it just for the act or the weird religion. It’s just another expression of ppl fed up with the current system. Read beyond what you see.

    • Fredrika

      > “This is so pathetic it’s hard to know where to begin.”

      There’s always some people that find love, marriage and religious faith to be pathetic, that’s nothing new, hardly worth even mentioning.

      But what’s truly pathetic is when trolls spread false propaganda trying to protect an illegitimate monopoly and weak failed entrepreneurs that can’t handle themselves on the free market. Or when those same trolls advocate the dismantling of human rights and civil liberties in an attempt of getting rid of fully legal competition from modern successful entrepreneurs.

      Hmm, now what pathetic troll was i thinking of..

    • Anonymous

      You mean as compared to a religion which:

      1) Practices ritual symbolic cannibalism (Christianity).
      2) Has as main goal the perfect extinction of the self (Hinduism).
      3) Sees the contract with the deity of choice invalid unless you perform a ritual mutilation of the genitalia (Judaism/Islam)?

      Etc.

      You’re right. The core paradigms of most religions are at the core of it so pathetic it’s hard to know where to begin.

      I’ll say this about kopimism though. It goes together pretty well with what every prophet of most world religions have stated.

      I’ll just assume you are an atheist and that this is your general approach towards organized religion, shall I? Or are you just being inconsistent to a fare-thee-welle?

  • Did the Internet die?

     LOL a piracy wedding? Now I am going to stand by my modem holding a pair of scissors and will cut the cord if I see more lame shit like this posted once a week…Internet has gotten waaaay too dam stupid now. This amused me. Torrentfreak, I dare you to post a My Little Pony: FIM fad article next!

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  • Desu75

    You always have that segment of the population who just take things too far. Must be Mac users. 

  • Ian

    I need to hear the “and then?” part of this — I have four kids… Done the copy & remix thing well and often…   And then?   Job Done.  Step 1 complete..  Now what am I supposed to do.   I need more if I am to take this seriously.  Oh and CNTL-v? really.  CTRL-C clearly, it has many meanings, it’s revered in many languages for different reasons.  But V?  I’m more in line with Fundamentalist Kopimist’s on this I think.

    • Anonymous

      Well, basically you’d have to send the created copy to dev/null once it’s usefulness has expired, as is the standard, then make a copy of something else.

      This illustrates a perfect example of religion taken one step too far into the fundamentalist realms though.

      • Ian

        I’ve sent the kids to bed… but really I don’t think I can send them to /dev/null — that seems rather extreme.

        • Anonymous

          Look, it’s what I do to naughty files and most copied files I’ve run once. You could run rm -rf as well without breaking orthodox procedure if you like.

          Files I have no immediate use for but want to keep i just compress and store which I suppose is a perfectly viable alternative.

          o.O

          …I’m painting a picture of fundamentalist kopimism which makes militant islam look like a liberal’s convention, aren’t I…?

  • http://profiles.google.com/be.slayed Benjamin Slade

    I’m more in favour of Ctrl-w, Alt-w, and Ctrl-y (C-w, M-w, C-y).

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  • madheadBANGer666

    What about their children???
    ……..
    lol,,,xP

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  • http://animuchan.net/ Rei-chan

    Do want!

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  • None44

    >The Church encourages the newlyweds to “copy and remix some DNA-cells and create a new human being.”

    So no gay marriage then?

  • Anonymous

    will the Kopimist church allow same sex marriage? It should open up in the US and start a huge debate. 

  • Pingback: Se oficializa el primer “matrimonio” de la Iglesia del intercambio de archivos - La Isla Buscada

  • Tom

    Yeah this sounds unfortunately heterocentric.

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  • Guest

    LOL @ the priest.

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  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001543873716 Anthony Tadayoshi

    This is awesome! I’m going to start a church like that in Canada

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