A "church" whose central tenet is the right to file-share has been formally recognised by the Swedish government.
The Church of Kopimism claims that "kopyacting" - sharing information through copying - is akin to a religious service.
Full story: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16424659
And Yea, it was said that on the first day, The holy patron saints of file sharing did create BBS's.
And Much time was spent sharing files. and file sharing was done. BBS administrators did provide files to their visitors, and those visitors did consumeth those files like hungry hungry hippos.
And yea, there was much candor about mosaic, and the world wide web. And people did embrace it, for it did so much make file sharing easier. And people did use ftp and gopher to share files more, and it was good.
But the dark lords of private software and recording companies and did not like the communistic approach to sharing of data and information, and there was the revision to the copyright act, and there was much derision about the future of file sharing.
Then the patron saint Bram Cohen dideth speak to his file hungry public, and he did say "They can take our files, and our networks, but the way I wear my hair? they can never take that away from me" And much was said about his hairstyle, and there was much confusion. And then he said "let there be a node-based decentralized file-sharing software system! And there wasn't one so he made one. And it was bittorrent, and it was good.
But the dark lords in the software and recording companies didn't like this. They sent their angry beavers to try to assault the Patron saint Cohen's secret lair in the clouds. But he did fight back with much valour, and his armies slew the lawyers that were sent against them by virtue of the decentralized technology through which they shared files the infringed copyrights.
The lawyers did them retreat to their studies, and they did study, and then they studied somemore, and they did tell their dark masters, that there was nothing they could do since the system was decentralized, and the dark masters did have their lawyers stuffed and mounted, which gave them little satisfaction. So they did add to their softwares various mechanisms for trying to prevent people from sharing, and there was much said about these mechanisms that was mostly negative, and those who did share were able to work around the issues while the software's legitimate purchasers were stuck answering stupid questions like what was the first letter on the 50th page of their manual, or answer cryptic puzzles.
And so they did consort with the governments, under guise that their business strategies and techniques, being as out-dated as feudalism, was nit at fault, but it was the evil file-sharers who were the problem, and the governments did say, "let there be silly laws that can be interpreted in so many ways it makes looking at a software license illegal if you do it the wrong way" and there was the DMCA. And the software dark masters did rejoice, for now they could zip their software, call it protection, and then threaten anybody who used it with DMCA action.
But they still had their thorn in the side, as Patron saint cohen's continuing legacy of P2P file-sharing systems did spreadand infect people over the world, creating a vast decentralized file-sharing network that had no clear weak points, and was thus impossible to assault. So the music recorders did choose random people in the public, and they did sue them for no reason, and many of those they sued didn't even own a computer, much lss had they pirated or copied software, but it was of no difference, as the tantrum was not discerning. And grandmothers did get forced into slavery to pay million dollar debts to companies that claimed she stole Mp3's when she didn't even know what a CD was. And yea, the public was angry, for this was most clearly stupid. But the recording dark lords stood firm, "We are protecting out artists interests" they said. Of course all questioned how suing random grandmothers would protect anybody. Eventually they stopped, when the dark lords realized how stupid it was to sue random people. However there was much digression, the DMCA was not enough to protect their interests and keep a steady profit coming from existing customers. And so they did re-release star wars for the 50th time. And then they pushed for a new set of laws, SOPA, and much was said about SOPA that people didn't understand, and the file sharing networks did become loud with inquisition, and there was much misinformation.
that's the Kopimism bible up to today.
