American online pirates now have places to worship, reports Jason Koebler for US News:

A Swedish religion whose dogma centers on the belief that people should be free to copy and distribute all information—regardless of any copyright or trademarks—has made its way to the United States.

Followers of so-called “Kopimism” believe copying, sharing, and improving on knowledge, music, and other types of information is only human—the Romans remixed Greek mythology, after all, they say. In January, Kopimism—a play on the words “copy me”—was formally recognized by a Swedish government agency, raising its profile worldwide.

“Culture is something that makes people feel much better and makes people appreciate their world in a different way. Knowledge is also something we should copy regardless of the law,” says Isak Gerson, the 20-year-old founder of Kopimism. “It makes us better when we share knowledge and culture with each other.”

More than 3,500 people “like” Kopimism on Facebook, and thousands more practice its sacred ritual of file sharing. According to its manifesto, private, closed-source software code and anti-piracy software are “comparable to slavery.” Kopimist “Ops,” or spiritual leaders, are encouraged to give counsel to people who want to pirate files, are banned from recording and should encrypt all virtual religious service meetings “because of society’s vicious legislative and litigious persecution of Kopimists.”…

[continues at US News]
POSTED FROM DISINFORMATION

There’s a huge problem with working out that has yet to be solved: when, precisely, do our workout clothes become too worn to wear anymore? Apple knows we can’t be wasting endless minutes looking for holes and tears in our shirts and pants, so it’s just obtained a method patent to let you know when your gear is past its prime. The patent claims sensor-equipped garments that can track how you use them, report that info back to a central database and alert you when the clothing has reached “its expected useful lifetime.” (Read: it’s time to buy some new, undoubtedly more expensive gym clothes.) This latest bit of IP doesn’t just cover clothing either, Cupertino’s claiming the same method for running shoes, too. The footwear bit also provides real-time feedback that compares your current running style to an established profile to keep your workouts consistent — useful feature, that, though we can’t imagine such iShoes would make the folks in Niketown too happy. We’re not sure how Apple aims to make the needed wearables equipped with embedded electronics, but we can offer you plenty of typically broad patent legalese explaining the system that’ll get you buying them at the source below.

POSTED FROM ENGADGET