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Fighting UCITA
On Oct. 1, UCITA will become law in Maryland (Virginia passed a version of UCITA too, but delayed the effective date of the law until July 1, 2001). Infoworld has an article about Iowa considering "bomb-shelter" legislation to protect Iowans from UCITA-based laws passed in other states, and offers a few helpful hints for software purchasers. My suggestion is this: don't buy software from any UCITA-state company, or any national company whose licensing says you are bound by the laws of a UCITA-state. There's simply no reason to take risks like that.
Is there anything that residents of VA or MD can do? Will buying software from a company in a state that has not passed UCITA protect us if the purchaser of the software lives in a state that has passed it?
The simple way to avoid falling victim to UCITA is don't buy software! Use Free Software that is covered by the GPL or some similar license (by similar license, I mean BSDish or Larry Wall's Artistic License).
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
Nah, that won't work... I buy games.
Mind you, UCITA doesn't affect us foreigners in other countries...
BlackNova Traders
I guess Slashdot only cares about BAD news nowadays. What about a "Good job, Iowa!" for not only not passing UCITA, but actively trying to work against it?
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If you could convince them to arrest you, you could take it up the courts as a protest...
Want to work at Transmeta? MicronPC? Hedgefund.net? AT&T?
Can your IM do this?
My understanding of UCITA is that it has a profound effect on open source software in that the programmer of the software is now liable for the software; however, a shrink wrap license can remove this liability. since open source has no shrink wrap licensing, it's out of luck.
Just buy on line form a Canadian company. Not only is the exchange good for you, you can still get the 128 bit crypto stuff.
When someone yells "Stop" or goes limp, or taps out, the fight is over.
Don't buy stuff from UCITA bound companies eh? Good luck! The advantages that using UCITA laws give are so great that we're going to be lucky if companies don't at least try to release their software under UCITA provisions. Are best bet is to hope that for comercial software some companies will recognise a market for non-UCITA software and provide for that market. But with the current state of the computer industry that seems unlikly. There just aren't that many software companies for critical stuff.
All the more reason to use OpenSource... Maybe this could end up being a big boost to OpenSource? Lets hope so...
That does seem to be part of the point of the thing, I agree.
What we need to start working toward is a "UCITA-Free" symbol that could be certified and awarded by something like the EFF, letting consumers know that no consumer-rights-destroying license provisions exist for the software.
Information wants to be free -- but informants want to be paid.
But there's something interesting about UCITA, the idea that someone can be held to a "clickwrap", or "shrinkwrap" when the usual contractual element of "meeting of minds" may in fact not be present.
Send a 6 year old into a s/w store to buy a copy of "Learning to Read v1.0". If they have the cash, the store will certainly sell the s/w, but did the kid read the shrinkwrap? What if (obvious in this hypothetical) they can't read?. Were they *legally competent* to agree to the terms? Can the store clerk make those determinations?
I suggest that many of us who operate web sites put up notices: "by entering this web site (beyond the main page) you agree ..."
If a "clickwrap" agreement can be made to stick, then stick it to them!. We have a lot more of the web than they do, they must agree to our terms to access it.
And our terms should be to make UCITA onerous, so that it's tossed out.
My understanding of the law is that you don't need to be here in Virginia, or up in Maryland, in order to distribute software using that license. So the mere presence of a company in this state, such as mine, really shouldn't be criteria for boycott. Otherwise, I'd have to boycott myself. :)
However, Michael's point regarding companies that say that you're bound to UCITA regulations should definitely be boycotted. Hell, boycott might be too weak of a word. I will not only boycott these products -- I will actively encourage others to stay the hell away from them.
But please, let us Virginians (and Marylanders) be. We don't like the law either!
-Waldo
Not true.
You can disclaim all liability under current law. The only trouble is will a "shrink wrap" license hold up in court. I'm betting that GPL will hold up where as licenses that restrict your rights beyond what you're granted under copyright and fair use will not. GPL grants you additional rights that you are not normally allowed under current laws if you are willing to abide by a few conditions placed on the exercise of those additional rights.
I've also argued here before that UCITA is good for Free Software, since it makes the GPL equally as enforceable as any other license. I'm not arguing against UCITA. I'm arguing against the use of software that comes with restrictive and exclusionary licensing, in other words, software that is not free.
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
The sooner the US has a software community instead of a software industry the better! I want free beer! :-) :-) The EPA would probably kick our asses for the hydrocarbon release though...
However, apart from the dangerous implications for commercial software, I'm worried about the effect on micro-programmers. I believe there was some question of liability if a programmer released software as "freeware" or some similarly badly-defined software. I'm pretty sure GPL is safe, but how many single-weekend programs have an agreement at all? People will stop releasing these often-useful programs if they have to go through the hassle of licensing each one.
If we're going to hold a demonstration, I vote we get 1000s of copies of boxed software and burn the shrinkwrap off them!
A brief discussion occured on the bill after its Maryland passage at TECHNOCRAT.NET. People might also be interested on what Del. Kumar Barve, chair of the House subcommitee that examined the bill, had to say:
I'm not saying that the Maryland law is perfect, just that you ought to know what your talking about before you express an opinion.
Bob Kopp
The notion here where i am, Europe, is that all these "You just agree to these terms before installing" or whatever, are not in themselves LEGAL. ie, they can put all kinds of crap in there, it doesn't absolve them from the real law, nor does it put any additional burdens on you the clickee.
But who is reading this? Even in the US? Is it 1% of people who actually read those acres of mumbo jumbo. (Even Carmack in a post on slashdot indicated his belief that nobody really read that stuff). Can a company in good conscience claim they have a "deal" with their customers when said customers don't read it because they believe it is their property since they have payed money for it.
Some people then say, that you don't buy the program, you "license" it - that i also think is slightly suspect. Hell no, i don't license it - I BUY A COPY. Its mine - go away!
Hmm..i wonder if it would work with other products You don't buy a car, you license it.. and agree never to run a red light, speed or look at girls while in the car! (You break the rules they come and take it back)
Or the license agreement for this DVD says you must behave properly infront of the TV while you watch it, so no fondling the wife!
Hmmm, i wonder if there is a future in being a "i agree" clicker. Ie, Person A has shelled out hard earned cash for a new program, he then calls person B. Person B comes over, installs the program and click on the "I agree" button and leaves again. Person A now runs the program without having agreed to anything, eh? *G*
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If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Hypothetically, if every single Slashdot user boycotts UCITA software, most likely no one will give a damn. We're a huge crowd of people, but in the software market we are insignificant. The answer to "What can we do?" is not "Don't buy UCITA software."
What we need to do is find an effective means of persuading the rest of the software purchasing community, and yes, that means clueless consumers, that UCITA software is evil. I hate to quote from Mein Kampf here, but we need simple slogans that simple people can understand that we can get people to repeat over and over again.
You can say what you want about Iowa (Idiots Out Wandering Around, etc. etc. etc) but we do have a pretty forward thinking state government.
Iowa has the Iowa Communications Network, a state-owned OC-192 fiber that is primarily used for distance learning, but also hooks all the small, country schools into the internet. I believe that it is the largest state owned fiber-optic network in the US. (Oklahoma has something like it, but not on as big a scale).
Some time back there was an aritcle about the CAVE. Well, Dr. Carolina Cruz-Neira, one of the founding "mothers" if you will, of the CAVE is now at Iowa State University, preparing for the opening of the next generation of CAVE-like technologies - The C6 .
Maybe we have nothing to do but pick corn and dink with computers, but I sure love this state!
I don't expect the UCITA laws to last very long.
We mostly portray UCITA as software companies vs. consumers. But when it comes down to it, it's a way for big software companies to shaft other companies, including smaller software companies.
Further, my limited experience with jury duty leads me to believe that the vast majority of lawsuits in the USA are suits between two companies, rather than a suit between a consumer and a company.
The net result is that a few very powerful software companies have set themselves up to shaft all but the largest companies in the state (who will exempt themselves by buying under a non-shrinkwrap contract). Small businesses cannot afford to operate under the conditions imposed by UCITA, and it happens that small businesses have enormous political clout in the USA.
I suspect that we'll soon see some suits against UCITA companies from small businesses, at which point either the UCITA will be found unconstitutional and struck down, or else the small businesses will be told that the law requires them to bend over and learn to enjoy it, at which point a sort of grass roots movement with much more clout than we geeks have will come into play, and state legislators will earn a spot in Guiness for their astonishing speed at backpedaling.
States are smart to want to appeal to big high tech industries. But what will they gain if the rest of their businesses move to Iowa? Someone in Iowa deserves kudos for figuring this out.
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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Cool idea! Let's all buy our mail order or electronic purchases of computer software from Iowa companies!
Will in Seattle
Specifically it violates the Commerce Clause.
A transaction between parties in 2 states is by definition commerce and therefore falls squarely in the jurisdiction of Congress. For more on this, search for "Commerce" in this article on tactics against spam.
Cheers,
Ben
PS IANAL and all that.
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
If anybody's looking for a good day to protest UCITA (or even out-of-control intellectual property rights in general), I would recommend May Day, on May 1, 2000. Chances are, if you're near a relatively large city, they're going to be having a May Day celebration.
The focus of May Day is going to be anti-globalisation/anti-corporate rule, with an emphasis on labor rights. UCITA ties in with this because most of these bills are meant to help out a few corporate interests despite screwing people (I refuse to call people "consumers").
I, personally, would love to see an anti-copyright contingent at one of the mayday celebrations.
Here's a couple links for you:
http://www.mayday2k.org - Has a list of which cities have celebrations planned, as well as links to the history of May Day and contact information.
http://mayday.indymedia.org - The same autonomous collective that brought you independant coverage of the Seattle and Washington D.C. anti-globalization protests will be helping to cover May Day around the world.
Even if you're not interested in protesting, I'd recommend you check May Day out anyways, since it should be just an all around fun time.
Michael Chisari
mchisari@usa.net
People in America have computers,
True.
they need software for many reasons.
True.
This means there has to be a local software industry to supply their local specific needs.
How does that follow? I don't use software from "a local software industry". I use Free Software.
But even that is beside the point. You are saying that "the US software industry will not decline because it is currently making so much money". Terrible, terrible logic. At one point railroads made a lot of money too--have they declined? What about car makers? Computer hardware, for crying out loud.
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Bob Kopp posts an article (#35) detailing the facts of the Maryland UCITA bill.
The Maryland UCITA bill incorporates virtually every good suggestion made by consumer advocacy groups, so much so, in fact, that I hope that every state passes a law like theirs.BR>
Slashdotters still have their panties in a wad about boycotting UCITA software, or in extreme cases just blatantly pirating it.
Hmmm...is it just me, or does no one here ever read other posts anymore before giving out their half-assed opinions? I'm wondering if half the people calling for a boycott even know what UCITA's effects are, other than their "online w4r3z BuDd13z" saying it's the spawn of Satan.
Before anyone else passes judgement, why don't you find out what Virginia's actual UCITA text is, so at least you can make a judgement that's not completely ignorant.
telnet://bbs.ufies.org
Trade Wars Lives
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
...on a regular enough basis over the last 14 years, I know that legistlation follows the cash in this state. Delegate Kumar Barve isn't fooling anyone who happens to have dealt with legislators on topics dealing with childbirth choice and other matters where personal rights have been trampled into the mud by powerful special interests.
UTICA is going to screw over the people of Maryland and frankly, I'll join the boycott. Someone put up the website with the software list. I'll tell my family what not to buy and start raising awareness so that we can vote the schmucks out of office.
UTICA can't limit my right to free speech, nor can it prevent me from voting for sensible representatives in November. At least not until the morons in Annapolis make amendments to regulate -that- too.
In space, no one can hear you moo.
For one, the Maryland UCITA only has protections for consumers. Which means that I, as a business user, am screwed. Now, I'm sure that lots of you folks don't care about business users (what with us being the spawn of Satan and all that), but we do pay your salaries. If we get screwed, we're taking you down with us.
Second, a goodly portion of the Maryland UCITA protections hinge on the flaky definition of "mass-market". Now, what the heck is that? Some legal folks have said that, possibly, no transaction conducted over the Internet would qualify as "mass-market" for the purposes of UCITA.
Certainly it's not the end of the world. But just because you saw protections in the Maryland UCITA, that doesn't mean that those protections will actually protect you in any way.
I have no
What is more likely is that vendors will include backdoors and time bombs for anti-piracy or other purposes. Should a customer discover that the remote disabling capability is there -- perhaps after suffering a disaster due to it being triggered accidentally -- UCITA protects the vendor from liability.
If this is true I am going to write a small shareware program and at end of the 10 day trail it will demand 1 BILLION DOLLARS and if it is not paid it will "lock" the user from their computer and dial up to a sex chat line in Brazil for $12398.75 per minute to their phone line (convently enough I own the chat line)
But lets think about this (assuming it just isn't FUD) Micro..uh.. Microhard sells a text edtior
user installs text edtior
text editor ask user for serial number
user enters the serial number on the box
text editor says it is the wrong serial number
user learns that they mistyped the serial number (had caps lock on)
To late, text editor deletes entire hard drive and then plays a wav "You Suck user"
user has lost all data and his feelings hurt
judge says "you suck user, that is legal for them to do"
user switches to GNU/Linux
user is happy...
Ahh so this is a good idea after all, we could use more GNU/Linux users in our quest for Total World Domination, so this works quite well.
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
Next time I see him, I intend to discuss UCITA laws (and the anti-consumer behavior of the software giants) and nudge him towards LINUX and open source tools. Not because of the Free Beer (he can afford to buy software), and not because of the stability (he doesn't push his system very hard, and rarely crashes), but because software that makes _all_ source code available to the customer is subjected to peer review and scrutiny. If Red Hat or Debian were to put a "back door" in one of their distros, it would probably be found and posted to places like /. in short order. M$, Apple, and other closed-source companies don't have that kind of accountability (although props to Apple for putting part of OS X out there... not all of what I want to see but a good first step).
I also live near Iowa, and plan on using this news to pressure my legislators (and a certain former pro wrestler in the governor's mansion) to model a similar bomb-shelter law after Iowa's.
So... thank you, Iowa. I might hate driving through your state (nothing to see but corn for miles), but you obviously have some leaders with a Clue.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
With all the obvious opposition to laws such as the UCITA and the DMCA so evident in places like Slashdot, it's a wonder to me that people haven't stormed the Washington Mall demanding that their rights cease to be trampled on. Perhaps the reason for it is the same that made the Clinton Impeachment trial so much of a non-issue. America's economy is better than it's ever been, and no law maker wants to take responsibility for a crash by making the wrong decision.
In this case, Maryland wants to keep software companies happy and ensure that their economic success continues even more. Consumers are apathetic to a blatant loss of their rights because they too are blinded by economic boom. Americans have become content with the status quo, and see little reason to protest "business as usual" in their state capitals when everything has so far been working out so well.
The only way the American people will become concerned enough about this and other loss of rights will be for them to lose their contentment and realize what's actually going on. Until then, these grevious errors in our lawmakers' judgement will continue to go relatively unopposed by the general public.
Laws in the USA DO affect "foreigners in other countries".
Just ask the teen (or his father) who created the decss program. He is a citizen of (and resides in) a country that specifically allows reverse engineering for compatibility by their law. And even then he was arrested, and his equipment confiscated at the behest of a United States corporation, for violation of a United States Law.
Even if the case is eventually dropped, incarceration (for any amount of time), and the disruption of the family livelihood is a BIG EFFECT!
We all should be concerned and active.
The fact that no two snowflakes are identical should tell you something important about God's will.
This means there has to be a local software industry to supply their local specific needs.
Very True. I went on vaction to Texas one year and purchased a copy of Microsoft Windows 98 and when I got home (NY) to install it, it didn't work. The reason? I can only conclude this peice of software didn't work because it was made by and for Texas and not NY. Software is that smart and ajusts it's self depending on your location (example, how does it know what time it is when you first install it!!!). Buy local software for your computer and save your self some trouble. The next day, I went to the local computer store and picked up Red Hat Linux 6.2(NY version), install it on my computer without any problems.
Judging from the facts at hand, the only differant was that one was a Texas version and the other was a NY version. Buy from your local state.
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
The good news is that this merely sets the contractual defaults for shrink-wrap licenses (which have mostly been validated without UCITA). Software companies with some integrity, or at least within some reach of market forces, will opt out of the more harmful defaults. The bad news is, most people don't pay enough attention to the licenses on the theory that we are pretty much stuck with whatever the software companies want to write, and the more draconian the licenses get, the less we care.
The real focus should be education. Small companies and government entities MUST begin paying very close attention to licenses, and ignore the fine print at their peril. Sadly, these over-reaching licenses also tend to encourage a flout-law attitude among society at large. Can't say I'm surprised on either count. We have the best law money can buy! :-)
And yes, this is one of the best things to happen to open source in a long time. They have just vastly increased the cost of using shrink-wrap software. Talk about cost of ownership! Think of all those attorneys getting paid to read these @#$% licenses. Commercial folks should start adhering to one standardized license or another. They choose UCITA (generally, not some states bastardization) and yes, we boycott. Better yet, spend a few minutes scaring your PHB!
Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes "Who Keeps the Keepers Themselves" ~ Juvenal
[see subject]
Well, if the 'bomb-shelter' law passes here, I won't have to worry about it. I guess there are some advantages to being in a small state where the legislators actualy give a damn... Its to bad the artical's slashdoted and I won't be able to read exactly what's going on....
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
The GPL does not "Modify" an implied warranty or disclaimer, it simply states that there is no warranty. To modify would be to change it after the release.
I can say Nike sucks without violating their trademark. I can also write a newspaper article that says Nike spams, and sell that. Similarly, I can write a list of people that spam, including Nike, and sell that. It doesn't try to change the meaning of Nike, so it's not a trademark violation.
I don't particularly like UCITA myself. I'm not strongly opposed to the Maryland version, in the same way that I am to the original version. I think the primary reason Maryland decided to implement UCITA this year was because the General Assembly Leadership felt it was necessary to attract software companies as well as No. VA; I tend to doubt it will have this effect.
Nevertheless, it is not a valid conclusion that anybody who supports UCITA is either a self-serving megacorp, a moron or a crook. I don't like all the leadership in Annapolis, but I know a fair number of General Assembly members myself, and all the members I know honestly want to do what's best for the constituencies.
You aren't going to get anywhere in trying to win legislators on to your side if you assume that the only reason they disagree with you is because they've been bought out.
Bob Kopp
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
It means death for fractal diversity and therefore calling a halt to evolution.
Also, being born in Iowa, I just wanted to point out that Iowa has been accused of being one of the least "diverse" states in the US. If counted as a separate country it has one of the highest standards of academic excellence in the world(although that holds for most of the northern midwest breadbasket states). Iowa's "lack of diversity" is exactly the sort of thing that is required for fractal diversity to exist.
States Rights keeps "the laboratory of the states" evolving fresh insights into human nature and human potential.
It is possible to increase the popular conception of "diversity" by infecting yourself with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, so be careful which kind of "diversity" you promote.
Seastead this.
BTW, looks like it's passed both the House and Senate and is ready for the Gov's signature.
From the Iowa General Assembly web site:
A transaction that is subject to a computer information contract which provides that the contract is to be interpreted pursuant to the laws of a state that has enacted the uniform computer information transactions Act, as proposed by the national conference of commissioners on uniform state laws, or any substantially similar law, is null and void and the contract shall be interpreted pursuant to the laws of this state if at least one party to the contract is a resident or has its principal place of business located in this state.
For purposes of this subsection, a "computer information contract" means a contract that would be governed by the uniform computer information transactions Act or substantially similar law as enacted in the state of residence of the other person to the contract if that state's law were applied to the contract.
GPL does not depend on shrinkwrap licenses at all. It does not restrict how one may 'use' or even copy an (unmodified) program. So thus, it does not depend on the pseudolegal idea of shrinkwrap contracts, unlike most commercial software.
A program distributed under the GPL gives you additional rights in COPYING that are normally forbidden by copyright law. It lets one distribute a program distributed under the GPL in an unmodified form.
The GPL does not take 'ownership' of any patches. If you patch a GPL program, the patches are yours. What you cannot do is to distribute the patched program. IE: you can license your patches under whatever license you want, but you cannot distribute the PATCHED program (the one that includes code you did NOT write.) without conforming to the terms of the GPL.
If you think about this, this is like an artist who says ``you can take my paintings and do anything you want, except to modify them. If you want to distribute modified copies, you can't remove my name from it and you have to send me $10 and a free sample.'' Here, the artist grants the explicit right to copy, but reserves the right to distribute modified version. This is all under copyright law. UCITA doesn't affect this transaction.
So, the GPL is something [that when applied to source code] grants you additional rights you would not otherwise have had. Shrinkwrap 'contracts', on the other hand, take away rights that are normally granted by law.
UCITA does not alter or affect GPL license in any fashion, other than potentially make it illegal to reverse-engineer code to see if it is illegally including GPL software.
Oh, come on...
Even under current law you can use GPL software, even where the GPL is considered invalid. I don't think anyone is going to sue if you follow the GPL on GPL'd software.
Since the GPL grants you additional rights, it should be valid anywhere. Also, I have not heard that UCITA makes licenses which disclaim liability invalid. In fact, I've heard just the opposite, which is one of the reasons it has been touted as so bad for consumers. Individual states may have added such language before passing UCITA, however. I can't imagine the industry coming up with a wet dream legislation like UCITA and not having disclaimer clauses be totally and legally binding.
Anyway, my point still stands, if you want to avoid commercial licenses that restrict over much what you can do with a piece of software, then use only software that the license allows you access to the source code and allows you to use any modifications that you make to the software. If it's not source code, it's not software!
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
Want to work at Transmeta? MicronPC? Hedgefund.net? AT&T?
Can your IM do this?