UCITA (warning - it is long)
keith@christianexchange.org
keith@christianexchange.org
Sat, 3 Mar 2001 09:49:39 -0700
Hi Jim,
Thank you for putting this together.
Keith Smith
----- Original Message -----
From: Jim <farli@qwest.net>
Sent: Friday, March 02, 2001 11:16:13 AM
To: <plug-discuss@lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us>
Subject: UCITA (warning - it is long)
> UCITA
>
> There is a bill in the Arizona Legislature that will, if adopted into law,
> seriously harm the citizens of Arizona. HB2041 was introduced by:
>
> State Senator Chris Cummiskey
> Assistant Senate Floor Leader
> State Senator, District 25 - Central Phoenix (Current)
> ccummisk@azleg.state.az.us
>
> State Senator Ramon Valadez
> Legislative District 10 - Tucson
> rvaladez@azleg.state.az.us
>
> State Representative Jim Carruthers
> Republican -- District 5 - Yuma, Parker, Quartzsite, Wellton, San Luis
> jcarruth@azleg.state.az.us
>
> State Representative Debra Brimhall
> Republican -- District 4 - Winslow, Holbrook, Snowflake, St. Johns,
> Taylor,
> Springerville, Eagar, Showlow, Payson, Miami, Globe, Superior, Hayden,
> Pima,
> Florence, Casa Grande
> dbrimhal@azleg.state.az.us
>
> State Representative Mark Anderson
> Republican -- District 29 - western Mesa
> manderso@azleg.state.az.us
>
> State Representative Dean Cooley
> Republican -- District 21 - Mesa
> dcooley@azleg.state.az.us
>
> State Representative Jeff Hatch-Miller
> Republican -- District 26 - Phoenix
> jhatch@azleg.state.az.us
>
> State Representative Wes Marsh
> Republican -- District 28 - Phoenix
> wmarsh@azleg.state.az.us
>
> These and indeed all the members of the Arizona Legislature need to be
> informed about the consequenses of this proposed legislation. I propose
> that we submit the following information to ALL Arizona legislators.
>
> --------------
>
> The purpose of this communication is to inform you about our concerns
> regarding HB 2041 - UCITA. This bill, while superficially appearing
> beneficial, deserves your serious consideration. There are many
provisions
> of this proposed legislation that will seriously harm your constituents,
> the citizens of Arizona. Please take the time to consider our objections.
>
> UCITA (originally titled UCC 2B) was designed and promoted by the
> proprietary software industry. UCITA is a contract law statute that
would
> apply to computer software, multimedia products, computer data and
> databases, online information, and other such products. It was designed
to
> create a uniform commercial contract law for these products and calls
> itself "a cyberspace commercial statute." It covers contracts that are
> generally known as "shrink-wrap licenses".
>
> Many individuals and organizations are opposing UCITA because it has the
> potential to be very harmful to consumers, especially consumers of
computer
> products (which we all are today). Among those opposed to UCITA are the
> Consumers Union, the Association of Research Libraries, a large number of
> state attorneys general, and an organization to which I belong, the
Phoenix
> Linux User Group.
>
> We, as Americans, generally believe that big companies ought to be held to
> a strict standard of liability to their customers because it will keep
them
> honest. UCITA will do the opposite. UCITA says that by default a
software
> developer or distributor is completely liable for flaws in a program. But
> it also allows a shrink-wrap license to override the default.
> Sophisticated software companies that make proprietary software will use
> shrink-wrap licenses to avoid liability entirely.
>
> UCITA has another consequence. It gives proprietary software developers
> the power to prohibit reverse engineering. This would make it easy for
them
> to establish secret file formats and protocols, which there would be no
> lawful way for anyone to figure out. The current technological
> sophistication that people enjoy today and the unprecidented access to
> information that we all have via the Internet is built on a foundation of
> open standards and open protocols. These standards, and their supporting
> protocols, were designed, developed, enhanced, and adopted by the
computing
> community at large in an open, visible way. Were UCITA in effect while
> these standards and protocols were being discussed, the Internet would be
a
> vastly different creature. It would have been created and now be
> controlled and manipulated by the proprietary software companies who would
> have had the ability and the power to stipulate secret standards and
> protocols and prohibit the computing community from discovering those
> standards and protocols under penalty of law.
>
> UCITA does not apply only to software. It applies to any sort of
> computer-readable information. Even if you use only free software, you are
> likely to read articles on your computer, access data bases, etc. UCITA
> will allow the publishers to impose the most outrageous restrictions on
> you. They could change the license retroactively at any time, and force
> you to delete the material if you don't accept the change. They could
even
> prohibit you from describing what you see as flaws in the material.
>
> UCITA will also validate software licenses that excuse software vendors
> from responsibility for "buggy" software. It will even allow vendors to
> prevent users and reviewers from publicly discussing a product. Both the
> ruling by the Supreme Court of the State of Washington and Microsoft's
> demand to Slashdot.org to remove Internet postings about one of its
> products are evidence of a disturbing erosion of customer protections in
> state contract law.
>
> The Supreme Court of the State of Washington ruled that "not our fault"
> language contained in a shrink wrap license for software was valid, even
if
> the customer never read the disclaimer and the software company knew about
> the defect before the product was sold. In the Washington case, a
> construction company made a $1.95 million error in a bid it submitted to
> build a medical center because of a defect in the software. The
> construction firm discovered the error only after the bid had been
> accepted. The construction company sued the software developer and
> distributor to recover the $1.95 million and the court ruled that a
> liability waiver in the shrink-wrap license provided complete protection
to
> the software company.
>
> UCITA would make the Washington Supreme Court's ruling law in every state
> that adopts the legislation. According to Skip Lockwood, director of
4CITE
> (For a Competitive Information Technology Economy), "UCITA takes away
> software firms' incentive to pre-test their software in order to
distribute
> bug-free programs. Software companies can ship programs with known
> defects, secure in the knowledge that UCITA will shield them from
> liability."
>
> In another case, Microsoft has demanded that Slashdot.org remove postings
> on its web site about a Microsoft security product. Microsoft contends
> that when the users downloaded the product from the Microsoft site, they
> clicked on a confidentiality agreement. Therefore, users are unable to
> publicly comment on the software.
>
> UCITA would render this click-on confidentiality agreement (and many other
> onerous provisions) completely enforceable. "UCITA will allow software
> vendors to bind thousands, if not millions, of people to secrecy.
> Consumers and competitors will not be able to comment on or criticize the
> vendor's products" according to Lockwood.
>
> Opponents argue that UCITA gives software manufacturers and information
> services an unfair advantage and leaves consumers with very little
recourse
> when they find themselves with bad software. The opponents include
>
> 26 State Attorneys General
> Association for Computing Machinery
> Free Software Foundation
> Consumers Union
> 4CITE, a broad-based coalition of end-users and developers of
> computer and information technology
> Society for Information Management
> IEEE
> Newspaper Association ofAmerica
> Motion Picture Association of America
> Association of Research Libraries
> and many others
>
> Thank you for your time.
> Jim
>
> Bliss comes from within, ignorance from without
>
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