Earlier Sunde complained that the Västervik Norra prison, where he is serving a term for assisting in copyright infringement, can’t accommodate his vegetarian diet choice, a problem that has already resulted in him losing 5 kg in weight.
The Church of Kopimism is a peculiar phenomenon. Founded by a group of self-styled internet pirates four years ago, it holds sacred the copying of information and people’s right to do it without restrictions. It even declared keyboard shortcuts for copy and paste commands – Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V – as its holy symbols.
In December 2011, at its third attempt it was officially recognized as a religion in Sweden and now enjoys all the legal protection that goes with the status.
Sunde says his right to meet a Kopimist priest was barred by prison red tape, reports The Local.
“The board of spiritual care (NAV) doesn’t have any representative for the Kopimist faith with whom they cooperate and therefore the Prison and Probation Service should provide permission for electronic contact with representatives from the Kopimist faith to believers,” Sunde wrote in his letter to authorities.
According to Sunde’s complaint, the church has only two recognized representatives in Sweden.
Sunde was arrested in May after two years on the run from authorities. His sentence, which he shares with other Pirate Bay co-founders Fredrik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, includes a one-year prison term and an order to pay damages to the entertainment industry. An appeals court reduced the prison terms but increased the damage to a total of $6.5 million.
