[d@DCC] The petition

[Chris Brand]

So having said that most of the petition was pretty stable, I got some
great suggestions and changed some parts slightly.

I also see that somebody has added this to the wiki version :
>THAT desemination of cultural ideas requires that these ideas be preserved 
>in a form that can be accessed by future generations of Canadians;

I quite like the concept, although it does overlap to some extent with the
previous paragraph related to "accessibility". What do others think ?
One minor quibble - if you're going to make changes, please check your spelling !

Darryl, thanks for the suggestions. I'm still thinking about them.
Reading the guidelines, I think the pleading should be just a single
paragraph.

I agree that "don't extend the term of copyright" is more contentious
than "don't do it without careful consideration", but I also think that
it's really important. I've found in talking to most people that they
don't realise how long the term currently is. I've actually had people
not believe me when I told them that it continues for 50 years after
the author's death - they thought it was much shorter than that. So my
gut feeling is that I prefer the stronger language and let's educate
people who are unsure about signing as a result.

> THAT Digital Rights Management technology employed by copyright holders 
>  not be permitted to infringe upon the rights of consumers in the lawful 
> use of copyrighted material.

I like this idea, too, but I hope that it's already captured (albeit not
quite this explicitly) in "preserve all existing users' rights".

I am open to persuasion on all these points, though.

The latest draft is at http://www.digital-copyright.ca/phpwiki/?PetitionForUsersRights

Chris

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