First United Church of Kopimism, US

Hello fello Kopimists,

You can find the torrent file that consecrates our most holy values here: #link removed#

It consists of several open-use Kopimi images.  We are holding a digital service in #kopimi.DService on the irc.telecomix.org IRC server.  If you cannot make the service, you can participate in spirit by downloading and seeding the torrent file linked above, and by sharing data with other people actively during the next 12 hours.

Datalove be with you all,

AdVATAR

EDIT: The link seemed to be prompting people for a password, so it has been removed.  There was no password originally, and the link was working for a few hours without this oddity.  Unfortunately, I have not been able to get to the appropriate computer in order to fix the issue.  Sorry for the confusion.

Dear Kopimists,

Kopimist Churches around the world will be holding a global digital service on February 2nd at 3 PM GMT (that’s 10 AM EST).  Any and all Kopimists are invited to attend, regardless of specific branch affiliation (or lack thereof).

Here are the details:

We will kick off the kopimony with a link for a publicly-tracked torrent file containing open-use Kopimi images.  These images will already be seeded by those who’ve already downloaded the torrent.  After that, members may choose to copy and share as much or as little as they choose.  The practicing of our faith through worship occurs at the discretion of each individual Kopimist – we are not a fascist faith.

Date: February 2, 2012

Time: 3 PM GMT

Location: irc.telecomix.org

Channel: #kopimi.DService

Duration: The official duration of this service will be 12 hours.  Members are welcome to attend for any portion of the service, and may stay longer if they so choose.

Connecting: If you have issues connecting to Telecomix, or if you are interested in using an anonymizing application such as Tor to connect, you may want to visit http://chat.telecomix.org for more information.

Until then, Copy and Seed.

Hello Fellow Kopimists,
We are at an historic moment for Kopimism in the USA.  The First United Church of Kopimism, US will be holding its first digital service late next week.  We will begin the service, celebrating the holy transfer of information, by listing the link for a bittorrent file containing several official Kopimipyramid images, as well as user-submitted Kopimi artwork.   We have arranged for several seeders to facilitate the initial copying of the file.  If you have any Kopimistic images that you want to see included in the inaugural digital service torrent, please send them to the e-mail address listed under the “Contact” link in the upper menu.  Details about timing and location will be officially posted in the next few days.

Until then, seed the faith with your fellow man, so that we may all transcend mortality through the exponential copy and preservation of information, our most sacred expression of humanity.

Datalove be with you,

AdVATAR

Hello brothers and sisters!

Though it is short, it affirms many of our basic beliefs about the goodness of sharing information.  I try to say this prayer once per day, though I want to remind everyone that none of our congregation has an obligation to recite prayers regularly.

Saying this prayer helps remind me that there is one basic right and good thing I can count on in this world: the spread of the holy informational sacrament.  Seed the faith with your friends, family, loves ones, and IRC acquaintances!

I love to see the data
Flowing, bit by byte
And when there is no seeder
I know it isn’t right.
I want to share my data
Every single way
So that my fellow Kopimists
May seed another day.

Datalove be with you. -AdVATAR

Hello Kopimists!

We now have a way for Kopimists to register with our church!  You can become a member by clicking on the Join The Church link at the top of this page, or by clicking here.

The founder of the First United Church of Kopimism, US was interviewed recently by Jason England and the good people at New Rising Media. You can read the interview here.

Copy and seed.

Hello Kopimists!  I just wanted to give a shout-out to Free Software Magazine for spreading the word about Kopimism!  Their specific article on Kopimism, here reminds us about the tendency of churches to, upon multiplying in number, take on different viewpoints about the same subjects, sometimes even contradicting each other.  While we at the Church of Kopimism in the US don’t believe that there should be any fascist dogma associated with the behaviors of non-operator Kopimists, we value remixing and invite anyone with a interest to copy, remix, and seed our religious faith!

Nothing can stop datalove.

Hello Fellow Kopimists!  The New Zealand branch of the Church of Kopimism has announced that it will seek formal recognition as a religion.  If you have any information regarding the administrative hurdles that they must overcome in their quest for recognition in New Zealand, or even if you just have some kind words of support, please visit their website and let them know ASAP!  You can see the official announcement through this link: Recognition as a religion in New Zealand

Make datalove all over the world!

The process of gaining approval from the Administrative Services Agency was anything but a minor formality. The first application was sent to the Administrative Services Agency in 2010.  Three applications and one year later, it was accepted.

In our correspondence with the Administrative Services Agency during that year, it appeared that they seemed not to understand our vocabulary that we use to describe our practices. For example, instead of writing about worship, we talked about kopyacting. We wrote the members instead of talking about a wider community. It’s all about semantics. In the end we realized that the only way to get past the eye of the needle was to copy their own texts into the application. After all of these difficulties, Ctrl-c + ctrl-v, finally gained formal recognition.

Our Nova Doctrine to the New Time 2.0 is based on a few basic axioms, which in turn can be traced back to our strong defense of the informational value, the value that all information possesses, in itself regardless of the specific properties of the information. Since information and information value is so sacred to us, Kopimists recognize these few basic axioms:

- Copying of information is ethically right.

- Dissemination of information is ethically right.

- Copymixing is a sacred kind of copying, moreso than the perfect, digital copying, because it expands and enhances the existing wealth of information

- Copying or remixing information communicated by another person is seen as an act of respect and a strong expression of acceptance and Kopimistic faith.

The right to copy is harmonized with natural law, and therefore copying is an essential part of life. The dogmatic copyright doctrine is in conflict with human behavior. Their domination is based on censorship and regulation of knowledge flow, and the imposition of their faith on us, a la Franco.

That the authoritarian copyright doctrine is elevated to a state religion goes against the 1700-century Enlightenment ideals we hold so dear to our hearts. Justice departements have at times sent out small brochures to schools teaching that knowledge is created out of nothing. The least we can ask is that the state remain secular and let each individual decide what is morally right.

Our Nova Doctrine questions “the God-given order” with respect to the perception of knowledge and information. Kopimism teaches that it is morally right to copy and disseminate information. To create is to copy. Copying is creating.

Copyright extremists of knowledge are seen clearly in the discussion of plagiarism in universities. We try to indoctrinate students with the notion that they should come up with something entire novel, though in reality is it only possible to refine existing information. Authorship is one long process of remix and copying.

When millions of people sit on their couches to watch the latest X Country’s Idol or X Country’s Got Talent, it simply consist of copies of the previous sets we’ll see. Copies surround us everywhere and we must end the illusion that something new is created from nothing. What then is unique?

There are voices from Christian quarters that Kopimism is not a true religion. The criticism is that The Church of Kopimism only mimicked the correct language to get the approval of the Administrative Services Agency; that we are only a rip-off.

We see Christianity as a wonderful example of what we want to preserve. There is probably no concept of Christianity itself that has was created from scratch. Everything is a re-interpretation or variation on previously-existing streams of thought.  Christianity is an excellent example of remix culture!

It is not only Christianity that remixes, but in all likelihood also Islam and Judaism. Everything in life consists of copies and refinements. We are therefore attempting to live in coexistence with other copies.

The best-known information carrier, the book, was created as part of religious activities. It was in the Church that books were copied by monks. Even then, they understood the importance of disseminating information – of copying. In modern times, the Christian monks had other duties and have thus lost the important social role they once had.

The social work of the missionary Church of Kopimism is very important. It is a vanguard of creating copies of knowledge and culture to other fellows, taking up where the Christian monks stopped. We want to live in a world where all people have access to all information, no one is kept out or back. To become a legitimate religious community in Sweden, we believe that we need to get government grants and obtain a permit to perform marriages.

It is with the Ministry of Health that we may apply for grants as a faith. We have begun to look at the eligibility requirements and procedures for procuring state funds. In the future, we will prepare an application and, we hope, obtain approval. Because we have already been identified by some as controversial, we assume that we will encounter resistance. In the end, it is government that makes decisions about which religious groups to whom the public money.

Administrative Services Agency is the proponents of marriage law. An important and entirely legitimate demands, is that you must have been operating for some time. Kopimistsamfundet was formed in 2010 and has had continuous operation since its formation. If this would not be “business for more” we are extremely surprised.

Like so many other believers, we wish to conduct operations as a legitimate organization and believe in religious freedom wings. Therefore, we strive to become a legitimate religious community in the hope of the modern Inquisition against us Kopimists and believers must cease. Inquisitors want to make an example of us, like what happened when the Catholic Church put heretics in the block in the square. We may not share their faith and beliefs, but we are sure that we must coexist regardless.

The belief about the spirituality and the right of all people to the copy and sharing of all knowledge and information is here to stay. Religion should not be viewed as a steadfast and static. It is changing and constantly adapted to the prevailing social values.

Copy and seed.

Dear Fellow Kopimists,

Never forget that information is sacred, and never let anyone else forget it either. Declare your Kopimist beliefs at the top of your lungs and at the tips of your fingers every chance that you get! Do not be intimidated by fascist governments and corrupt politicians, who seek only to pervert justice in favor of corporate interests. The Chuch of Kopimism in the USA, just like the Swedish Church, is dedicated to the exponential multiplication of knowledge and information, aiming for nothing less than the preservation and dissemination of all information that anyone has ever wanted to share!

We are doing our part by maintaining these points of contact on the internet, but you need to do your part as well! Get out there and spread the message so that others may begin to question our esoteric and obsolete notions of intellectual property and copyright. This is not a test. The very open nature of our internet is at stake, and it is up to us, fellow Kopimists and global citizens, to do everything in our power, without resorting to violence or destruction of property, to keep the flood gates of information open!

Take big bytes and leave no bit unshared!

The following was originally posted on the Swedish Church of Kopimism and translated into English.  All efforts have been made to keep the original intention and meaning of the text in place.  This values statement will be found under the “about” section of this website from now on.  Please copy and seed.

From http://kopimistsamfundet.se/ (First posted in Swedish on 01/10/2012):

Kopimi was coined as a concept in the early 2000′s on a pirate Agency Forum.  Kopimi, from the word “copy me”, is an invitation to copy.  Kopimi is the name of an attitude to life, animated by the desire to be copied and copied. For us the question of freedom to copy is not political, but much deeper than that.

The Church of Kopimism does not make claims regarding gods or supernatural forces. Life as we know it originated with the DNA molecule’s ability to duplicate itself, irrespective of the original creation of the Universe.  The process is the most basic element of life, nature, and the DNA is really just an information carrier, a result of molecular segments that determine who we become. Reproduction is the very condition for cell division and life in the form we know it.

Copying is fundamental to life and runs constantly all around us. Shared information provides new perspectives and generate new life. We feel a spiritual connection to the created file.

An important feature of our church is the missionary message. From all to one and from one to all – and then back again – exchange without beginning and without end. Everything to everyone’s delight, and everybody’s joy of it all. No one is excluded from the global community of knowledge and information sharing.  Every believer has all knowledge – all knowledge is spread by every believer to all people without exception. Start the exponential cascade.

Languages are cultural expressions of different ways to exchange information, and are essential tools for most social animals.  Culture itself develops in concert with the dissemination and evolution of languages.  It is not possible to distinguish the spread of culture from the creative process because it is virtually the same thing. As with language, culture becomes useless and dies out if it does not spread. Copying is creating. To create is to copy. That something occurs out of nothing is an absurd idea.

The missionary Church of Kopimism applied to become a registered religious community because we deserve the same recognition and respect other faiths. Soon we will also apply for marriages, as well as for government support to expand our business.

We humans always want answers to difficult questions. Kopimism is a creed that tries to answer the existential question: what is the meaning of life? We believe the answer lies in the copying, distribution and remixing of information