Salut,

On Tue, Dec 04, 2007 at 10:09:52PM +0100, Alexandre Suter wrote:

I encourage everyone to have a look at the website and pass the word around... There is not much time left !

French : http://no-dmca.ch/index.fr.html German : http://no-dmca.ch/index.de.html Italian : http://no-dmca.ch/index.it.html English : http://no-dmca.ch/index.en.html

I do not mean to refuse you your right to your own opinion on this, but I want you to be aware of the fact that there is a certain risk involved with the referendum.

<history lesson> Before that, you should know that despite people's claims, this law has not been rushed past the people or anything. There has been a public hearing on this way back in 2005, which I attended. In 2006, the relevant gremia decided on the issue, and have been lobbied by us and quite a number of other parties. I have personally made an analysis of the (at the time) legal proposal, have postulated ways to improve it, and have invited people to come and help me (which some did).

All those people who claim that there has been no public notice of this law should simply be embarassed that they did not act in time despite the fact that there has been a _lot_ of public uproar about it for more than two years now, and should stop discounting our work on the issue, which has been considerable.

See also http://www.ffii.ch/action/urg2006/ </history lesson>

Now to the problems. We have already achieved something with regard to taming this law. The original proposal had far worse provisions, and we could have ended up far worse without some of the specifications. However, if the current law is abolished through a referendum, it will have to recurr immediately, because the law was not created out of hot air but as a response to an international treaty which Switzerland ratified.

However, chances are that next time, we will not be able to maintain the provisions which got into the law this time, so after a referendum, in my estimation, we will end up with a law which is way worse than it is right now. Thus, I would rather propose to use the provisions laid down in the law to force a new revision based on the facts which will undoubtedly be established in its evaluation, i.e. what happens after it has come to force.

Anyway, make up your own mind. I do not want to force anyone of you here not to sign this proposal, and there is a chance of course that I am entirely mistaken. What you should be aware of though is that this is not going to be the last thing you heard from the copyright revision.

Thanks for listening and sorry for the off-topic subject, I will not start into a flame war this time. ;-)

Tonnerre

Tonnerre LOMBARD wrote:

Anyway, make up your own mind. I do not want to force anyone of you here not to sign this proposal, and there is a chance of course that I am entirely mistaken. What you should be aware of though is that this is not going to be the last thing you heard from the copyright revision.

Thank you Tonnerre for your valuable input. Following the various discussions today on this topic, I was also referred to this article: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/05/swiss_dmca_say_it_aint_so/

I can only agree with the author when he says that "the petition has unquestionably raised awareness of copyright and consumer rights regarding digital media, which have received little mainstream attention so far in the Confederation".

Regards,

Alexandre