Sharing in spirit: Kopimism and the digital Eucharist

Abstract

Kopimism, a new religion officially recognized by Sweden in 2012, is based on the principles that copying, disseminating and reconfiguring information are not only ethically right, but also are in themselves ‘sacred’ acts of devotion. Kopimist philosophy also holds that ‘the internet is holy’ and that ‘code is law’ (a phrase copied from legal scholar Lawrence Lessig). Kopimism has already raised some interesting questions and debates in both legal and religious circles. Some grumble that the Kopimists are a bunch of ‘pirates’ using religious protection to shield them from copyright liability. Others suggest that the religion is little more than a sophomoric rhetorical exercise, the predictable product of a precocious young philosopher. In this article, I suggest that, if we take Kopimist doctrine at its word, we can better understand it as the crystallization of an emerging value system centred around the proliferation of digital, networked information. Like copyright, and monastic Christianity before it, Kopimism stakes out a socioepistemological vantage point, contrasting the regulatory demands of the twentieth-century copyright regime with today's globalized digital culture. Based on interviews with Kopimist officials and worshippers, as well as a critical reading of the religion's ‘constitution’ and other doctrinal texts, I delineate many of the ethical boundaries surrounding this new belief system, and examine it in contrast to some previous religious and legal systems, evaluating its points of continuity and rupture to illuminate the unique challenges to ethics and morality in an era of information abundance and continuing material and educational inequity.

Keywords:

• Kopimism
• copyright
• religion
• digital culture
• media ethics
• sharing

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Dr Aram Sinnreich is an assistant professor at Rutgers University's School of Communication and Information, and author of the books ‘Mashed Up’ (2010) and ‘The Piracy Crusade’ (2013), both published by University of Massachusetts Press. [email: [email protected]].

Notes

1. Quotation is from Gerson (2014). This and all Swedish articles were first translated by Google Translate and then corrected by Linn Ahlbom.

2. The wedding video is available on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYAiZ-L4gXg

3. At the time of writing, there are continuing legal and police actions against The Pirate Bay, including a recent raid and seizure of the site's internet servers.

4. All direct quotes from Engström, unless otherwise cited, are from a personal communication via telephone, 22 November 2013.

5. All direct quotes from Gerson, unless otherwise cited, are from a personal communication via telephone, 16 May, 2014.

6. The word ‘copy', both discretely and as part of larger compound words, is sometimes spelled with a ‘k’ in Kopimist texts. For the present article, I rely on the most prevalent spellings, except within the context of specific quotations.

7. ‘Datalove’ is a concept embraced by Kopimists and #telecomix members that refers to the development of intimacy and empathy through the act of sharing information.

8. It should be noted that the legal ‘freedom to roam’ is not unique to Sweden; similar codes can be found throughout Northern Europe and other parts of the world. Nor is it in any way ancient; rather, as Wiktorsson (1996) observes, it is arguably a thoroughly modern concept.

9. I am neither a religious scholar nor an expert in Christianity. Consequently, I have relied upon the expertise and generosity of the scholars Harry Bruinius and Max Lindenman for providing me with feedback and suggestions during the writing of this article. I am grateful for their contributions.

10. The overwhelming prevalence of ‘nonbelief’ in Sweden may seem, on the face of it, to contradict some of the basic claims of this article regarding the doctrinal roots of Kopimism. Yet, as a range of scholars (e.g. Bowpitt, 1998; Hout & Fischer, 2002; Mitchell, 1980; Vernon, 1968) have argued, a religiously unaffiliated individual may nonetheless share many ethical and moral values, and derive those values, from a prevalent religious tradition in his or her society or community.

11. Some scholars such as Badmington (2000), Bostrom (2005), Fukuyama (2003) and Hayles (2008) discuss these potentialities through the lens of ‘posthumanism’. While I acknowledge the value of this nomenclature, I also feel it should not be deployed without a degree of scrutiny and critique that exceeds the scope of this current article; hence, my choice is to avoid the terminology altogether.