I kopi, therefore I am

A major power struggle has broken out over the internet. In the past one year, free flowing, unregulated information has enabled movements like the Arab Spring, as well as disclosures of government secrets by online organisations like Wikileaks. At the same time, governments all over the world are gearing up to enforce laws to monitor and censor information, citing a variety of reasons — from maintaining communal harmony to protecting intellectual property.

Last week, in a major fightback against the proposed Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the US, a host of internet companies including Wikipedia, Reddit, and Mozilla blacked out their websites. US politicians, even those who supported the proposed laws, backed down and agreed to remove some controversial sections.

This is the setting in which a new religion called Kopimism (pronounced copy-mism) has been born. It was officially recognised by Sweden earlier this month. “We believe that copying is holy, and that information is holy,” said Gerson Isak, spiritual leader of the Missionary Church of Kopimism.

While some of its motifs may be inspired by Christianity, Kopimism is quite different. It recognises no god. There is no physical church (at least not yet) where the faithful congregate. Nor are there elaborate rituals to join Kopimism or practise the faith.

To join, all you need to do is believe in the church’s values, “All knowledge to all. The search for knowledge is sacred. The circulation of knowledge is sacred. Copying is sacred.” The only ritual involved is kopyacting, which is a three-part service. “We connect to each other through a server or a room. Then we copy information. Right before disconnecting, we tell each other to keep spreading that information,” said Isak.

The symbol of Kopimism is a K written inside a pyramid. Termed kopimi, it is the exact opposite of the copyright symbol. When you put the kopimi symbol on something, you encourage people to copy it. Other symbols include Ctrl C and Ctrl V (shortcuts for copying and pasting).

At this stage one wonders if this is simply a gimmick by a bunch of activists. But Isak, a 20-year-old philosophy student, and an active member of the Pirate Party, a political party in Sweden that is committed to reform copyright laws and strengthen privacy, sounds committed. It took him three tries spread over one year to get the religion registered with Swedish authorities. Once the news came out, the church’s website crashed temporarily due to the high amount of traffic. The website is in Swedish, but on it there’s a list of churches established in other countries, including India.

“I registered for Kopimism two weeks ago,” says Akshay Tyagi, an engineering student from Delhi College of Engineering, “I chatted with Gerson and asked him if I could spread word of Kopimism in India. He agreed and made me missionary organiser.”
To begin with, Tyagi built a website (www.kopimi.in) and spread the word through social networks. So far 25 people have registered for Kopimism.

“When I work on my projects, I pick up different things from different places and copy-paste them. When Akshay informed me about Kopimism, I felt I was already a Kopimist,” said Nitin Surya, a third year B Tech student from VIT Vellore.

“I am supporting Kopimism because I believe in vidyadaan, which is a big part of Hinduism,” said Neel Gupta, also an engineering student, “I don’t think think anyone should buy or sell knowledge.”

Tyagi said that they would organise meetings once the number of Kopmists increases. Surya, on the other hand, said that he was busy with two projects, but promised to look into Kopimism in more detail. Gupta, however, said that he is practising Kopimism when he edits Wikipedia pages. “I copy and paste information to the Wikipedia page, and add the reference. To me, copy, paste, reference is Kopimism.” Either way life hasn’t changed much for the Kopimists. “Most people are already living in quite a kopimistic way. Confessing to kopimism is more of an internal thing. It’s a new understanding of the world.”

And to what end will this understanding lead to? Will Kopimism seek to build a copyright free world? “This is not about rights. It’s about the holy values of copying. We are not in this to bring about political change, but to practise our beliefs,” said Isak. According to him, people will change their own lives by copying more, and “hopefully, they will also engage in the political struggle for a more copying world.”

The Swedish recognition to their religion has given them the much-needed identity. Now, Isak’s task is to grow Kopimism as much as possible. This is both difficult and easy. The difficulty lies in convincing people that they are serious. The easy part: “Everything can be copied. Anyone who wants to start a church of kopimism can just copy us without asking.”