House To Enact Anti-Spyware Law

Stephen Samuel wrote to mention that the U.S. House of Representatives has readied the aptly acronymed Securely Protect Yourself Against Cyber Trespass Act (SPY ACT) for law. MS-BS has an article claiming that the bill allows a loophole for the makers of proprietary software. The issue at hand concerns Section 5, paragraph b, subsection 2, under the heading of limitations. The law does not apply to: "(2) a discrete interaction with a protected computer by a provider of computer software solely to determine whether the user of the computer is authorized to use such software, that occurs upon (A) initialization of the software; or (B) an affirmative request by the owner or authorized user for an update of, addition to, or technical service for, the software." The law, then, would disallow Gator and their ilk but would not hamper Microsoft's Genuine Advantage Program. More complete commentary is available at TechReview and About.com.

Comments

Re:hmmmm

[cplusplus]

Law takes precedent over a EULA.

Technically speaking

[deblau]

The House of Representatives doesn't enact laws. This has to pass committees in the House and Senate, full votes in the House and Senate, and then the President has to sign it before it's an enacted law. Before all that happens, it's just a bill. (More information here.)

Basically, after the bill is signed into law, it becomes a public law and is printed as a "slip law" which can be cited in court. After every 2-year session of Congress, the slip laws are compiled in chronological order in the Statutes at Large. Every three sessions (six years), the at-large statutes are organized topically in the United States Code. The last US Code came out in 2000, so the next one is scheduled for 2006.

We just started the 109th session in January (2005 - 1789 = 216 years = 108 sessions prior to this one). That means that if you want to get print copies of laws passed in the 107th and 108th sessions (since 2000), you have to go to the Statutes at Large in your local law library. If you want laws passed by this Congress, you have to go to the slip laws. So far this session, there's only been one: Pub. L. 109-1, "To accelerate the income tax benefits for charitable cash contributions for the relief of victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami."