The Missionary Church of Kopimism: beliefs, history and sources

History & overview

Copying is a sacrament. CTRL+C, CTRL+V.

Kopimism holds that information is holy, that copying it is a sacred act, and that what the laws of physics permit should not be restrained by the laws of states. It has no god, no afterlife and no scripture — its whole doctrine is the value of the copy. It was founded by a nineteen-year-old philosophy student in Uppsala in 2010, at the height of Sweden's file-sharing prosecutions, and in the winter of 2011–12 the Kammarkollegiet registered it as a trossamfund, a religious community, on its third application. That registration made Sweden the first state to admit a church whose sacrament is duplication, and it changed nothing legally: Kopimism has never held marriage rights or drawn the state subsidy other registered communities receive.

Why it is filed this way

Kopimism is filed as parody with a caveat its members would press. It was built in the shape of a religion in order to make a political argument about copyright, which is the parody move. But it makes no claim it does not hold, asks nothing of members it does not do itself, and its adherents state their belief in the sanctity of information without irony. The Kammarkollegiet did not rule on sincerity; Swedish registration tests whether a body has statutes, a name and a decision-making order, not whether its faith is real.

DeitiesNo god and no supernatural claim of any kind. What is treated as sacred is information itself and the act of reproducing it.

Founded2010 CE · Uppsala, Sweden

FounderIsak Gerson and Gustav Nipe

AfterlifeNone taught.

The map

The Missionary Church of Kopimism’s corner of it — solid lines are descent; dotted lines are resemblance only, ideas held in common across unrelated faiths. Click a node to recenter; ✕ returns here. All 171 faiths →

Core Tenets

2 — a sample of the center, never the sum Enter →

Copying is a sacrament. Not a metaphor for one. Kopimism holds that duplicating information is a holy act in itself, that the copy has the same standing as the original, and that a work withheld from copying is diminished rather than protected. Go deeper — context →

What the laws of physics permit should not be restrained by the laws of states. The church's founding principle and its political argument in one sentence. Kopimists are precise that this is a claim about what ought to be, not a defence in law — no Kopimist has successfully pleaded the faith against a copyright charge. Go deeper — context & 1 source →

Figures

who it looks to — gods, spirits, ancestors; some rooms are empty on principle Enter →

I Isak Gerson. Nineteen and reading philosophy at Uppsala when he founded the congregation in autumn 2010, in the middle of Sweden's file-sharing prosecutions. He held the title of spiritual leader and was consistently careful in interviews not to claim the registration meant more than it did. Domain The founding, and the three applications to the KammarkollegietStanding A founder, explicitly not an object of devotion Meet them — context →

Rites & Ritual

what its people do — and when Enter →

Kopyacting. Copying performed together, in one another's presence, rather than alone at a keyboard. The act is identical to ordinary file sharing; what makes it a rite is that it is done openly, deliberately and in company. When weekly, where a congregation existsWho kopimists, led by an Op Go deeper — context →

Where next

the museum exit — every door leads deeper in

Buddhism — 9 shared ideas, a different faith Jainism — 9 shared ideas, a different faith Judaism — 9 shared ideas, a different faith Christianity — 9 shared ideas, a different faith Branch The Missionary Church of Kopimism — inherit everything, change what you must The library of ideas — what The Missionary Church of Kopimism shares with every other faith A faith at random — somewhere you have never been

Sources

1 cited texts

Det missionerande kopimistsamfundet, kopimistsamfundet.se where it is cited →

These citations identify texts used in the linked passages. Follow each passage to read its quotation and context. A tradition’s own texts explain its teachings; historical claims may also require independent scholarship. Translations marked (rendered) are our own plain-English wording, not a standard edition; where a passage matters, read it in a full translation.