UCITA Fight Comes to Texas

ILikeRed writes "Well, you mentioned this story more than once, and even gave advice on fighting it. But now the UCITA has come to Texas, my home state, so I am hoping you will send out the word, so we can show that people do not want this legislation, even if it is in Compaq's back yard. And here I thought they were supposed to be a company that got it - can anyone submit a full list of companies supporting this thing? Might be a good cause for a boycott...."

Comments

Don't take this one sitting down

[alewando]

If you're still not sure why you should oppose the UCITA, Cem Kaner has a good essay you should read. This is not just another bad law. This is the bad law of the decade, which could cripple consumer choice in the software industry and throw the brakes on the biggest economic boom we've had in years (powered by those tech companies, which will suffer because of the UCITA).

Write your congressperson and get some Federal legislation to preempt the UCITA. And more importantly, write your own state representative, because the only way to defeat will probably be on a state-by-state basis.

Right of Return

[aufait]

Supporters of UCITA always point to the "Right of Return" clause saying that it gives greater protection to the consumers than they currently have.

Last year, Maryland passed UCITA which went into effect in October. I noticed that all the major software retailers (Best Buy, Staples, Office Max, etc.) still have signs saying that there is no returns allowed on opened software. Has anyone in Maryland or Virginia tried to return software because they disagreed with the license? What were your experiences?

Funny you should mention...

[Herger]

Why would Compaq support UCITA? Don't they owe their existence to reverse engineering?

(Compaq built the first IBM PC clone by reverse engineering the IBM BIOS)

Don't just call

[www.sorehands.com]

Call and show up at their office!

Maybe tell them that they violated their license agreement and you are there to remove the software from their computer. After blood returns to their face explain that this situation is not far fetched....except that they can do it over the internet the weekend before the next election. No due process, no notice.

Texas Lege Contact Info & Links for UCITA Bills

[edwardames]

UCITA has been filed in the Texas House of Representatives as HB 1785, authored by Rep. Sylvester Turner, representing District 139 in Harris County.

UCITA has been introduced in the Texas Senate as SB 709 by Sen John Carona, a Republican representing District 16 in Dallas.

HB 1785 has been referred to the House Business and Industry Committee but is not yet scheduled for a hearing. Likewise, SB 709 has been referred to the Senate Business and Commerce Committee but has yet to be scheduled for a hearing. These committees will be holding hearings on the bills before the bills will go on to their respective houses for floor votes.

If you live in Texas, look up the email address of the Senator and Representative for whom you are a constituent at this page here.

If UCITA interests you, send them a short and concise email telling them about UCITA and how they should vote on it, and why they should vote that way. Be polite. Texas legislators are usually very receptive to communications from their constituents.

Expect that most legislators will not be familiar with the issues involved with UCITA, and that what education they are getting on it is probably coming from lobbyists. So help inform them.

The current legislative session will be ending in May, so if UCITA can't get passed out of committee and then passed in both houses, the software lobby will have to wait until 2003 for the next session of the legislature.

Hope this helps.

Ed

Contrary viewpoint

[PD]

Why is this legislation so terrible? Companies need to examine their legal obligations to determine their risk. If the risk of having your software stop working is too great a risk, then don't take it. Find alternatives.

Slews of Microsoft shops will suddenly see the reason why proprietary software sucks.

Moderators: if you think this is a troll, you're on crack. I'm serious about this.

Effective was to fight UTICA...

[trims]

As previously mentioned, the UTICA regulations are perhaps the worst thing ever to come out of a committee. Period.

what everyone seems to foget is the Achille's Heel of the proposals: Only Large Software Companies Benefit. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, else is hurt.

Look at some of the opposition groups/members:

• Boeing Aircraft and General Motors - two of the biggest companies in the world.
• The entire small-to-medium-size software company industry
• The Small Business Administration
• The American Law Association (particularly, contract lawyers)
• Most known Consumer Groups
• The San Francisco Cronicle, New York Times, Boston Globe, and the entire Newspaper Publisher's Assoication of America. In addition, virtually the entire computer/technology press has voiced strong objections.

While most people (including the representatives) seem to assume that Business(tm) is all for UTICA, this is simply NOT TRUE. And therein lies the way to effectively fight it:

1. Get the text and the Bill number that lays out UTICA in your local Legislature.
2. Take it to your company's Legal team, and explain to them why this is such a horrible thing. Use all the arguments from the various anti-UTICA sites around (I'm not going to post them here, because others have). Unless your company has deaf, dumb, and blind lawyers (and let's be honest, most corporate lawyers aren't stupid), they'll look at the Bill, listen to your arguments, and turn deathly pale as they realize what it will do to the company.
3. Get your company to write a strong letter of disapproval to the Legislature. Get a copy.
4. Take the Copy of your company's letter, and go to a couple of other companies you deal with, or even just patronize, and that use computers to run the company (and which company doesn't these days). Ask to talk to a manager. If you can, talk to someone senior. Explain the whole thing, and show them the letter from your company.
5. Get other companies to either sign on to the letter of disapproval from your company, or write their own. Get them sent.
6. Compile a list of the companies you get to disapprove.
7. Repeatedly call and write your Legeslative rep with the full details of why UTICA is bad, the general opposition, then include all the local companies you know of that have signed off on hating the bill.

If you can get something like this reasonably organized, when your rep gets 2 dozen angry letters from companies of all sizes and industries in his district, he's going to be reallllly cautious about the Bill, and that's what you want - serious debate, not a rubber-stamp. Because, in a serious debate, UTICA will lose. There are too many opposition members. UTICA's only hope is to ram it through (or sneak it in) before the opposition can organize. Don't Let That Happen.

-Erik, who is busily practicing what I preach here in Silicon Valley.