Reviews - File-Sharing Church of Kopimism now Official Religion in Sweden

[HEXUS]

Approved after two years of refusal.

Read more.

[Platinum]

What a joke, using religion to legitimise theft.

[jim]

I find it quite comical.

It will be interesting to see if they can actually gain any advantages from their status as a religion, but I suspect not somehow.

[shaithis]

What a joke, using religion to legitimise theft.

I'd rather they use it to legitimise theft rather then the plethora of violent acts that other religions seem to legitimise.

And Intellectual property rights are in for a hard time in our lifetimes it seems and I think in 10-20 years time the software, music and film industries will be thinking they got off lightly compared to manufacturers!

[Scribe]

What a joke, using religion to legitimise theft.

I'd say theft, like many things, is subjective.

If we're talking about movies and music I always find it interesting because unlike physical items such as cloths or electronics, downloading media isn't typical theft because you're not taking an item away from someone as it's a copy and you're not financially causing harm because the money that may have come from said item would have had to come from the downloader themselves as a potential customer. You can make the argument that were illegal downloads not available the user would have made a purchase but then one can never assume to know the true motives of another, finance may even not have allowed such a purchase. I'm not saying such an act would be right and just but I think in looking for a solution to illegal downloading we have to look at the true nature of the problem in order to treat it appropriately so that people don't suddenly feel the need to form religions.

Freedom of knowledge I'm a big supporter of, the logistics are just somewhat tricky to work through.

[Biscuit]

Excellent, they take advantage of the ridicules rules and exceptions that are made on behalf of religion to try and fight the ever growing levels of filtering and monitoring done by governments and ISPs, in doing so they make a mockery of both.

Love it

[shaithis]

Excellent, they take advantage of the ridicules rules and exceptions that are made on behalf of religion to try and fight the ever growing levels of filtering and monitoring done by governments and ISPs, in doing so they make a mockery of both.

I like the fact it mocks religion. Many people have been getting sick of others doing things (and getting away with it in many cases) because of their "beliefs".

I have a number of beliefs as well but for some reason mine are not recognised by any government, yet somehow people who believe in an all-powerful deity can be taken seriously and have laws passed based on it.

so, all praise the god of "gigabit internet for all UK citizens"

[.havoc]

I'd say theft, like many things, is subjective.

If we're talking about movies and music I always find it interesting because unlike physical items such as cloths or electronics, downloading media isn't typical theft because you're not taking an item away from someone as it's a copy and you're not financially causing harm because the money that may have come from said item would have had to come from the downloader themselves as a potential customer. You can make the argument that were illegal downloads not available the user would have made a purchase but then one can never assume to know the true motives of another, finance may even not have allowed such a purchase. I'm not saying such an act would be right and just but I think in looking for a solution to illegal downloading we have to look at the true nature of the problem in order to treat it appropriately so that people don't suddenly feel the need to form religions.

Freedom of knowledge I'm a big supporter of, the logistics are just somewhat tricky to work through.

Actually - even making an unauthorised copy is illegal. The whole argument over it being not being theft because there is no physical media involved is frankly a load bullsh*t.

By copying/distributing/downloading copyrighted material you are causing financial harm through the loss of sales. I am against the draconian way they abuse their power of enforcing copyright - but it is there for a reason. I know I would be particularly pissed if someone stole my work!

Various articles have recently published that Crysis 2 was pirated an estimated 3.9 million times. Now - lets assume for a moment, out of those who did it - 900 thousand (think im being generous here...) went out and bought a legitimate copy. At a RRP of say £29.99 (fair no?), they would stand to lose £89,970,000 in lost sales.

How can you possibly say that there is no financial loss through the use of a copy?

And then to justify this using religion? Do one (not you - the 'church' and its members...)

[shaithis]

Various articles have recently published that Crysis 2 was pirated an estimated 3.9 million times. Now - lets assume for a moment, out of those who did it - 900 thousand (think im being generous here...) went out and bought a legitimate copy. At a RRP of say £29.99 (fair no?), they would stand to lose £89,970,000 in lost sales.

900k? generous?

Hmm...if that were the case, I am sure that games would cost less to bring that number down.......or perhaps they know that the vast majority of those who pirate would never have bought it even if it were £5?

[.havoc]

900k? generous?

Hmm...if that were the case, I am sure that games would cost less to bring that number down.......or perhaps they know that the vast majority of those who pirate would never have bought it even if it were £5?

Hence why I said generous - in reality, the figure is probably closer to 3...maybe 4 people - but I don't believe there any statistics showing the pirated/purchased ratio. So was trying to be fair(ish).

If you go the whole hog you are looking at £116,961,000 in losses.

[d032sh]

You're also assuming that nobody who pirated the game then went out and bought a copy...

[.havoc]

You're also assuming that nobody who pirated the game then went out and bought a copy...

No im not - read my first post...

[miniyazz]

Actually - even making an unauthorised copy is illegal. The whole argument over it being not being theft because there is no physical media involved is frankly a load bullsh*t.

By copying/distributing/downloading copyrighted material you are causing financial harm through the loss of sales. I am against the draconian way they abuse their power of enforcing copyright - but it is there for a reason. I know I would be particularly pissed if someone stole my work!

Various articles have recently published that Crysis 2 was pirated an estimated 3.9 million times. Now - lets assume for a moment, out of those who did it - 900 thousand (think im being generous here...) went out and bought a legitimate copy. At a RRP of say £29.99 (fair no?), they would stand to lose £89,970,000 in lost sales.

How can you possibly say that there is no financial loss through the use of a copy?

And then to justify this using religion? Do one (not you - the 'church' and its members...)

Way too many assumptions for this to be useful. And, once again, confusing "illegal" with "theft".

There is really no way of knowing what number of people pirated a copy, what number of people who pirated a copy went on to buy a copy, what number of people who pirated a copy who went on to buy a copy would have bought a copy if they hadn't pirated it, what number of people who pirated a copy wouldn't have bought a copy if they hadn't pirated it, or what number of people who pirated a copy who didn't buy a copy would have bought a copy if they hadn't pirated it.

If you can make sense of that sentence you're doing well

[Hicks12]

bit of a silly example, Crysis 2 beta (or something like that) was leaked and so loads downloaded it.. not to get it illegally as such but to get it early... yes load did!

And as mentioned, theft is different to copywrite / illegal downloads.... you are saying they lost £89,970,000 in sales but look at it this way, if those that pirated it (excluding the 900k or whatever) didnt buy it then they probably wouldnt have bought it in the first place so there is no physical loss, the key here is potential sales thats the difference between physical theft as for example stealing a car would make the dealer/owner lose the value they paid for the item and you gain it, value has shifted to different person.


This religion is so funny... I prefer the Jedi religion though, even though its based on SW id say it could be right (oh dear )

[Saracen]

.... You can make the argument that were illegal downloads not available the user would have made a purchase but then one can never assume to know the true motives of another, finance may even not have allowed such a purchase.....

I think we can be pretty sure of two things.

1) Some of the people that download a freebie would have bought it had the download not been available. What percentage that would be is damned hard to tell, but I think it's clear it would not be 0%.

2) Not everybody that downloads a freebie would buy it if the download wasn't available. Again, the percentage is hard to argue, but I can't conceive of any chance that, absent the download, the purchase rate would be 100%.


So .... I think it's conclusive that some percentage above 0% but less than 100% would buy, but didn't because of the download. If so, the rights owner is suffering some loss. It won't be as much as the studios would have us believe, based on numbers of downloads, simply because not everyone that downloads would buy. Some, for instance, will download, listen, decide they don' like and delete. This is the digital equivalent of what I used to do many decades ago .... go into an actual shop, listen to a track or several from an album, and then decide if to buy or not. Sometimes I did, but I sure didn't buy everything I listened to.

As for the "Church" idea, that, personally, I think is just pathetic.

[kingpotnoodle]

Do they say "grace" before consuming data...

"Our lord Assange, we thank thee for this dump of pointless information and will dutifully pretend is as juicy as you say. We give thanks for bittorrent and the illegal network crushing joy which it brings us, we pray that our torrents may be free of malware and seeded most generously."