This Just In: File-Sharing is a Religion

(David Post)

In Sweden, at least — where, according to this article in PC Magazine, the government has just officially recognized the "Church of Kopimism," whose central tenet is that "information is holy and copying is a sacrament," and whose sacred symbols are CTRL-C and CTRL-V.

I haven't the faintest idea, of course, what it means, in Sweden, to be officially recognized as a religion, and what consequences flow from the determination; we live in a country where, obviously, there is no government body charged with determining what is, or is not, a "religion" (though courts, equally obviously, must from time to time make such a determination when looking at Free Exercise challenges to government action, or at Religious Freedom Restoration Act claims). But I wonder how a defendant in a file-sharing copyright action might fare by raising a RFRA defense ?

And while we're on the subject of religious nonsense, the same article informs us that "scientists in the U.K. have recently discovered that Apple technologies actually provide some people with a religious experience . . . [finding that] Apple products stimulate the same parts of the brain as religious imagery does in people of faith."

[Thanks to V. Steinbok for the pointer]