I'm really hoping that they land near that "face" on Mars that the Weekly World News always shows.;-)
Re:Non-infringing uses?
on
The Law and P2P
·
· Score: 4, Informative
While the Napster decision may have rested on that (didn't read the decision), that wouldn't qualify as a difference between Napster and Grokster/Morpheus. Because Napster was client-server as opposed to true P2P, Napster as a company was found to know about and also to be able to prevent copyright infringement. Since they could've done something, and since shutting them down stopped the problem, they were rightly (IMHO) held liable.
Grokster/Morpheus, OTOH, because they are pure P2P, are more like copy machines. They have substantial non-infringing uses and there is no way for the manufacturer to know whether a user is copying an item in violation of a copyright.
If, for example, record companies included some kind of encryption in their files that would prevent them from being played without some kind of key, and if Grokster/Morpheus included in their software some ability to strip out that encryption, then Grokster/Morpheus would be violating the DMCA, and might also be held liable for copyright infringement.
Actually, I didn't discuss that aspect because it wasn't relevant to the discussion. The original post said copyright protection was bad. Period. I disagreed and demonstrated how it provides incentives to artists to create.
There are a LOT of problems with the way that the implementation of copyright protection has evolved in this country, but I would still argue that the fundamental premise that you quoted is valid.
For the record, I do not think that I should be able to prevent someone from taking a picture of my art. Copyright protection should not prevent derivative works from being created.
Sigh. The original poster used real world examples and discounted the basic theory of copyright protection, so I used the henhouse example because eggs are basically an identical, fungible good - just like digital copies.
As far as your cite is concerned, I don't disagree with Stallman's basic argument that copyright protection is a tradeoff between the public good and the author's good (although I do disagree with some of his points - I'd be happy to debate them with you offline, as they would be OT). Congress, on behalf of the people, is "paying" artists for producing works, just as patrons supported artists in the past.
However, the article you cite deals with the implementation of copyright law in the US, not the basic theory of whether or not authors/creators should be allowed to prevent others from copying their works.
I agree with you that the term of protection granted to works should be the minimum necessary for the majority of artists to produce works, which is the reason why I said in my original post that I thought we had gone much too far.
The henhouse example was solely in response to the original post's real world property analogies. The original post objects to the theory of copyright, period, not the implementation in the music industry, which is what you describe.
My point was solely that if you were putting in the effort to create something (eggs or works of art), then you should be compensated for it, and having the ability to prevent others from copying your work improves your ability to be compensated.
Copyright protection represents a balance, just as patents do. Copyright is a recognition that creative art is good for society, and that artists require some compensation for their work. In the past, wealthy patrons supported artists. Now, we as a capitalist society say that artists can make art and sell it themselves. If they happen to create something that is successful, the public will reward them by paying for it. If they fail and either just do not have the skills or make art that the public is not sufficiently interested in, then they get no money from society.
To address your property examples, the copyright situation is more accurately represented by the following:
You own the only henhouse in a town, and are the only supplier of eggs. You take care of the hens, feed them and collect the eggs for sale. People like eggs and you are the only supplier, so you can charge a premium. You make lots of money. Then the town passes a law that says you are only allowed to sell a portion of your eggs. In the interest of the public, another distributor will take a portion of your eggs and sell them at a price of his choosing. The distributor will pay your costs for the eggs, but anything the distributor makes is his profit to keep.
You and the distributor are selling the same product. If the distributor sells his eggs at a lower price than yours, you will have to lower the price you charge. You are not "harmed", since your costs are being covered, but your profit has been substantially reduced. But you are doing all the work necessary to support the production of the eggs.
Wouldn't this piss you off?
If I create some new piece of art, if I elect to give it away, that is my perogative. However, as an artist, if I wish to sell my art to make a living (which will allow me to buy supplies to make more art, among other things), then I have to charge a certain price for my art. If my art is popular, and in limited supply, then the price will be higher and I will be compensated accordingly. But, if one person can buy my art, copy it and sell it themselves for a price that is lower than my price, why should people pay my price?
Copyright protection ensures my ability to benefit from the public's appreciation of my art.
Do I think that the ideas of licensing and copyright protection have swung too far? Absolutely. Movie companies should not have to license posters or art works that appear in the background in movies. I believe that the copyright term is too long. (MUCH too long) But that's just my feeling on the cost that society is paying to support art.
I firmly believe that copyright protection benefits society by allowing authors and artists to benefit financially from public interest in their works.
Ok, people. The guy gave the example of buy a car, get free music. Come up with your own example of what product you might buy that getting some free music along with it might motivate you to buy (And no, saying a CD is not a viable answer) - for example, what if one company started giving away free music with their MP3 player to make it more attractive than an iPod? Someone like a Big 3 automanufacturer could certainly negotiate a deal with the content companies that would allow you to pick your own music. That would probably be valuable marketing data for both the car manufacturer and the record company. (The car manufacturer would have an inside track on what music to use to advertise which cars to specific demographics, for example.)
The point is to come up with a vaild scenario where entertainment companies continue to make money, artists continue to be compensated for making art, and people get to use it whatever way they want.
Taken to its logical conclusion, the current model (as the RIAA sees it) is that record company supports artist, record company distributes music, one person buys CD, rips it and sends it to everyone on the web so no one else has to buy the CD. That's a financially unviable proposition for both the record company AND the artist. While this is not reality, this is the way the RIAA sees it, and, importantly, this is the way they are convincing your government to see it - which is why we get things like the DMCA. (On a side note, how many of those of you who say, "Music should be free!" ever send money to the artist to make up for the fact that they didn't get _anything_ for making the track that you downloaded? Artists may get screwed by the content companies, but at least they get something.)
The important aspect of the article is that in the coal scenario, the coal providers were subject to theft, so they came up with a way to sell in bulk to someone who provided the associated service to consumers. They changed their business model. So,/.ers are a creative bunch - what other business models could we propose that would keep the media companies from trying to pass new laws that limit piracy, keep artists alive and fed, and allow us to use entertainment data in the ways that we want?
What if, for example, a building had a central entertainment server that stored music and video, which would be accessible from an entertainment station in your apartment? Rather than pay-per-view, the data was just there for you to use as part of your monthly rent. Watch movies or listen to music all day - download it to your MP3 player to take with you, whatever. It's included just like your utils.
Or, if you're not a heavy entertainment consumer, perhaps some buildings might treat entertainment data more like telephone service, rather than heat. You get charged on a per-use basis.
Some buildings might go one way, some might go another way, or those might just be alternatives that you could select.
In both of those scenarios, the building could track data for ASCAP so that artists were appropriately compensated. Artists might even try negotiating with certain buildings/realty companies directly. Larger buildings might be able to provide anonymous demographic data back to the media companies which would enable the media companies to track what is popular - you might even get a discount off your rent if you agreed to that.
There are probably lots of reasons why what I'm suggesting won't work. It may even be a bad idea. But, don't just be critics - if you don't like my idea, tell me why you don't like it or you think it won't work and come up with your own.
Assuming that the satelite resolution could be fine enough to determine specific details, then, except for certain adolescent males and fetishists, I'm still not too sure that the x-ray clothing removal feature would be that exciting.;-)
Having been to beaches occupied by European tourists who are not too shy about sunbathing topless or nude, seeing through a lot of peoples' clothes would NOT be a stimulating experience.
Also, unless you were up close or watching cheerleader practice, there would be others in your field of vision - both the less attractive and the male.
And if you think that a green wire frame model of a naked woman is exciting, you've been in front of a CRT for MUCH too long.;-)
John
Falling into the Redundant Category...
on
Family Tech Support
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· Score: 2, Funny
...but I have to add my own story. The year - 1987. I'm at college and am the family tech support. My parents have one of the early IBM PCs with twin 5 1/4" drives. ("Yes, child, in the early days PCs didn't have a hard drive.") I had managed to acuire a copy of DOS and an early version of WordPerfect that would run on this machine.
One day I get a phone call from my mother saying that the computer won't work. I asked what she was doing at the time of the failure. "Getting rid of things so that I have space on the floppy disks." "Hmmm...Go on." "Well, I deleted a file and suddenly the computer wouldn't work any more." "What was the file you deleted?" "I don't remember the name." "Did you look at it before you deleted it?" "Oh, yes." "And?" "It was just gibberish and funny symbols." Sigh. Managed to track down a friend who could restore the files, fortunately.
Taking the business courses doesn't necessarily help. I worked for DOE from '89 - '91, and so actually remember the fractured world of the net (BITNET, HEPNET, NSFNET, etc.). I started in b-school in '91 and enjoyed the burgeoning community on the net.
The culture on the net (including the various lists in which I participated) was so strongly counter to the use of the net for business (e.g., people on the Pink Floyd discussion list got flamed for selling things like used albums and paraphernalia to each other) that as the web evolved, it never even occured to me what a scarce resource something like "Drugstore.com" might be. With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, of course, I kick myself for not realizing that and purchasing every bloody generic domain name I could get my hands (and my meager, graduate student finances) on.
So, the question is, in 10 years what will I be kicking myself for not recognizing now? Damn, I wish I knew.
When dealing with IP infringement, using real world examples can be tricky. The theft examples are not quite accurate because you HAVE purchased something. The question is, what have you purchased? You have certainly purchased the physical embodiment of a specific piece of IP, but what rights does that give you?
Even the RIAA/MPAA would agree that you have the right to resell the physical medium without retaining a copy of the item for yourself.
But what copies should you be allowed to make of the IP? Copyright law governs certain aspects of what you are allowed to do and what limits are placed on your ownership.
A more accurate analogy might be asking whether it would be illegal for car manufacturers to place governors on cars that would prevent their owners/operators from exceeding the speed limit.
While consumers might object, the governor would only prevent you from doing something that is already against the law.
See, when Anakin was working on R2, he cut his hand and some of the mitichondrians in his blood flowed over onto R2, allowing R2 a limited access to the Force - hence his ability to levitate. The little things that look like rocket boosters are just a side effect of a 'droid accessing the Force.
By the time of "A New Hope", the Dark Side(TM) had blocked access to the Force to a point where the few mitichodrians in R2's system weren't able to access it.
Really. To paraphrase Fletch, "Everything is mitichondrians these days."
John
Re:consider giving your time, too.
on
Geek Charities?
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· Score: 1
A similar group in Washington, DC, is called Byte Back. You can check it out at http://www.byteback.org. They can always use teachers (of all levels) as well as contributions of $ and/or equipment.
I volunteer with an organization called Byte Back. http://www.byteback.org Byte Back is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization which collaborates with other DC organizations to provide services to inner city residents. The main service Byte Back provides is computer training for unemployed and under-employed DC area adults and youth in order to increase their skill sets and marketability. Byte Back takes responsibility for equipment, software, curriculum development, volunteer teacher recruitment, training, and supervision. Byte Back has nine partner organizations provide computer lab space and lab time, recruit students, and are responsible for security at the organization's 12 classrooms in the DC area. Byte Back also provides job placement services to its students and graduates. For more info, check out the web site.
It's only tangentially an issue of free speech. When you purchase a piece of software, you agree to a license agreement - the terms of use for that software. This license agreement is a contract between you and the software vendor. The license agreement only applies to your use of the software.
If the license agreement says that you agree that you cannot use the name of the software to say anything negative about the software, then you have agreed, by contract, that as a condition of your being able to use the software, you won't use the name of the software to say anything negative about the software. The only consequence of your breaking this contract is that you have breached the license agreement, and the vendor may have some remedies against you for breaching the contract.
One of the remedies that is available under UCITA is that the vendor can include a back door in the software that would allow the vendor to shut off access to the software if the license is violated.
So, theoretically, if you purchased a game from that site, and if the vendor included such a back door, then if you used the name of the software or other mark to say negative things about the software, then the vendor could use the back door to shut off the software.
No. The way this provision works is that if you buy the software, you agree to the license. If you violate the license, then, technically, you either owe the company more money or you are not allowed to use the software any more.
Thus, if you watch your friend play the game, you can say anything you want about the software without violating the license.
There's more of an interesting argument here than immediately meets the eye.
First, UCITA is simply contract law, and the license provisions are simply an aspect of the contract. You have the right to trade away your rights as part of a contract. However, you could argue that such contracts are not in the public interest and should therefore be invalid and unenforceable.
Second, in the copyright/fair use area, UCITA is state law while the Copyright Act is Federal law. You could argue that for these purposes, the "fair use" doctrine is Federal law and therefore preempts this aspect of UCITA.
As another attorney, I agree with you on the 80% of the impact for 20% of the work thing.
However, the way I think this works is that since the "no-negative-use-of-marks" provision is part of the license agreement, if you use the marks to make "negative comments" then you have breached the license. If a company were to include the self-help remedies also provided for under UCITA as part of its software, then, theoretically, once you have breached the license by posting "negative comments" the company could reach into your PC and shut off the software.
Granted, this is a pretty extreme action. However, I'm not sure that the law should allow for such an extreme action.
Actually, it's not Congress. UCITA is state law. So far, it has only been passed in VA and MD, and it is pending in several other states. The only state that has taken an anti-UCITA stance so far is Iowa.
UCITA is a contract law statute that, if passed in a particular state, would apply to computer software, multimedia products, computer data and databases, online information, and similar products. UCITA is intended to create a uniform commercial contract law for these products. UCITA would generally cover shrink-wrap and click-wrap licenses but, depending on how it is enacted in a particular state could be broader than that.
For a very informative and relatively unbiased look at UCITA go to: http://www.cpsr.org/program/UCITA/ucita-fact.html
For an anti-UCITA editorial go to: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/ucita.html
Slashdot Mirror
I'm really hoping that they land near that "face" on Mars that the Weekly World News always shows. ;-)
While the Napster decision may have rested on that (didn't read the decision), that wouldn't qualify as a difference between Napster and Grokster/Morpheus. Because Napster was client-server as opposed to true P2P, Napster as a company was found to know about and also to be able to prevent copyright infringement. Since they could've done something, and since shutting them down stopped the problem, they were rightly (IMHO) held liable.
Grokster/Morpheus, OTOH, because they are pure P2P, are more like copy machines. They have substantial non-infringing uses and there is no way for the manufacturer to know whether a user is copying an item in violation of a copyright.
If, for example, record companies included some kind of encryption in their files that would prevent them from being played without some kind of key, and if Grokster/Morpheus included in their software some ability to strip out that encryption, then Grokster/Morpheus would be violating the DMCA, and might also be held liable for copyright infringement.
John
Actually, I didn't discuss that aspect because it wasn't relevant to the discussion. The original post said copyright protection was bad. Period. I disagreed and demonstrated how it provides incentives to artists to create.
There are a LOT of problems with the way that the implementation of copyright protection has evolved in this country, but I would still argue that the fundamental premise that you quoted is valid.
For the record, I do not think that I should be able to prevent someone from taking a picture of my art. Copyright protection should not prevent derivative works from being created.
John
Sigh. The original poster used real world examples and discounted the basic theory of copyright protection, so I used the henhouse example because eggs are basically an identical, fungible good - just like digital copies.
As far as your cite is concerned, I don't disagree with Stallman's basic argument that copyright protection is a tradeoff between the public good and the author's good (although I do disagree with some of his points - I'd be happy to debate them with you offline, as they would be OT). Congress, on behalf of the people, is "paying" artists for producing works, just as patrons supported artists in the past.
However, the article you cite deals with the implementation of copyright law in the US, not the basic theory of whether or not authors/creators should be allowed to prevent others from copying their works.
I agree with you that the term of protection granted to works should be the minimum necessary for the majority of artists to produce works, which is the reason why I said in my original post that I thought we had gone much too far.
John
The henhouse example was solely in response to the original post's real world property analogies. The original post objects to the theory of copyright, period, not the implementation in the music industry, which is what you describe.
My point was solely that if you were putting in the effort to create something (eggs or works of art), then you should be compensated for it, and having the ability to prevent others from copying your work improves your ability to be compensated.
John
Copyright protection represents a balance, just as patents do. Copyright is a recognition that creative art is good for society, and that artists require some compensation for their work. In the past, wealthy patrons supported artists. Now, we as a capitalist society say that artists can make art and sell it themselves. If they happen to create something that is successful, the public will reward them by paying for it. If they fail and either just do not have the skills or make art that the public is not sufficiently interested in, then they get no money from society.
To address your property examples, the copyright situation is more accurately represented by the following:
You own the only henhouse in a town, and are the only supplier of eggs. You take care of the hens, feed them and collect the eggs for sale. People like eggs and you are the only supplier, so you can charge a premium. You make lots of money. Then the town passes a law that says you are only allowed to sell a portion of your eggs. In the interest of the public, another distributor will take a portion of your eggs and sell them at a price of his choosing. The distributor will pay your costs for the eggs, but anything the distributor makes is his profit to keep.
You and the distributor are selling the same product. If the distributor sells his eggs at a lower price than yours, you will have to lower the price you charge. You are not "harmed", since your costs are being covered, but your profit has been substantially reduced. But you are doing all the work necessary to support the production of the eggs.
Wouldn't this piss you off?
If I create some new piece of art, if I elect to give it away, that is my perogative. However, as an artist, if I wish to sell my art to make a living (which will allow me to buy supplies to make more art, among other things), then I have to charge a certain price for my art. If my art is popular, and in limited supply, then the price will be higher and I will be compensated accordingly. But, if one person can buy my art, copy it and sell it themselves for a price that is lower than my price, why should people pay my price?
Copyright protection ensures my ability to benefit from the public's appreciation of my art.
Do I think that the ideas of licensing and copyright protection have swung too far? Absolutely. Movie companies should not have to license posters or art works that appear in the background in movies. I believe that the copyright term is too long. (MUCH too long) But that's just my feeling on the cost that society is paying to support art.
I firmly believe that copyright protection benefits society by allowing authors and artists to benefit financially from public interest in their works.
John
Ok, people. The guy gave the example of buy a car, get free music. Come up with your own example of what product you might buy that getting some free music along with it might motivate you to buy (And no, saying a CD is not a viable answer) - for example, what if one company started giving away free music with their MP3 player to make it more attractive than an iPod? Someone like a Big 3 automanufacturer could certainly negotiate a deal with the content companies that would allow you to pick your own music. That would probably be valuable marketing data for both the car manufacturer and the record company. (The car manufacturer would have an inside track on what music to use to advertise which cars to specific demographics, for example.)
/.ers are a creative bunch - what other business models could we propose that would keep the media companies from trying to pass new laws that limit piracy, keep artists alive and fed, and allow us to use entertainment data in the ways that we want?
The point is to come up with a vaild scenario where entertainment companies continue to make money, artists continue to be compensated for making art, and people get to use it whatever way they want.
Taken to its logical conclusion, the current model (as the RIAA sees it) is that record company supports artist, record company distributes music, one person buys CD, rips it and sends it to everyone on the web so no one else has to buy the CD. That's a financially unviable proposition for both the record company AND the artist. While this is not reality, this is the way the RIAA sees it, and, importantly, this is the way they are convincing your government to see it - which is why we get things like the DMCA. (On a side note, how many of those of you who say, "Music should be free!" ever send money to the artist to make up for the fact that they didn't get _anything_ for making the track that you downloaded? Artists may get screwed by the content companies, but at least they get something.)
The important aspect of the article is that in the coal scenario, the coal providers were subject to theft, so they came up with a way to sell in bulk to someone who provided the associated service to consumers. They changed their business model. So,
What if, for example, a building had a central entertainment server that stored music and video, which would be accessible from an entertainment station in your apartment? Rather than pay-per-view, the data was just there for you to use as part of your monthly rent. Watch movies or listen to music all day - download it to your MP3 player to take with you, whatever. It's included just like your utils.
Or, if you're not a heavy entertainment consumer, perhaps some buildings might treat entertainment data more like telephone service, rather than heat. You get charged on a per-use basis.
Some buildings might go one way, some might go another way, or those might just be alternatives that you could select.
In both of those scenarios, the building could track data for ASCAP so that artists were appropriately compensated. Artists might even try negotiating with certain buildings/realty companies directly. Larger buildings might be able to provide anonymous demographic data back to the media companies which would enable the media companies to track what is popular - you might even get a discount off your rent if you agreed to that.
There are probably lots of reasons why what I'm suggesting won't work. It may even be a bad idea. But, don't just be critics - if you don't like my idea, tell me why you don't like it or you think it won't work and come up with your own.
John
At the risk of some "OffTopic" karma, why did some anonymous user just copying and posting the article (which is available at the link) get modded up?
The author of the article deserves some positive karma for an interesting, thought provoking concept. But someone who can cut & paste? No.
Assuming that the satelite resolution could be fine enough to determine specific details, then, except for certain adolescent males and fetishists, I'm still not too sure that the x-ray clothing removal feature would be that exciting. ;-)
;-)
Having been to beaches occupied by European tourists who are not too shy about sunbathing topless or nude, seeing through a lot of peoples' clothes would NOT be a stimulating experience.
Also, unless you were up close or watching cheerleader practice, there would be others in your field of vision - both the less attractive and the male.
And if you think that a green wire frame model of a naked woman is exciting, you've been in front of a CRT for MUCH too long.
John
...but I have to add my own story. The year - 1987. I'm at college and am the family tech support. My parents have one of the early IBM PCs with twin 5 1/4" drives. ("Yes, child, in the early days PCs didn't have a hard drive.") I had managed to acuire a copy of DOS and an early version of WordPerfect that would run on this machine.
One day I get a phone call from my mother saying that the computer won't work. I asked what she was doing at the time of the failure.
"Getting rid of things so that I have space on the floppy disks."
"Hmmm...Go on."
"Well, I deleted a file and suddenly the computer wouldn't work any more."
"What was the file you deleted?"
"I don't remember the name."
"Did you look at it before you deleted it?"
"Oh, yes."
"And?"
"It was just gibberish and funny symbols."
Sigh.
Managed to track down a friend who could restore the files, fortunately.
Taking the business courses doesn't necessarily help. I worked for DOE from '89 - '91, and so actually remember the fractured world of the net (BITNET, HEPNET, NSFNET, etc.). I started in b-school in '91 and enjoyed the burgeoning community on the net.
The culture on the net (including the various lists in which I participated) was so strongly counter to the use of the net for business (e.g., people on the Pink Floyd discussion list got flamed for selling things like used albums and paraphernalia to each other) that as the web evolved, it never even occured to me what a scarce resource something like "Drugstore.com" might be. With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, of course, I kick myself for not realizing that and purchasing every bloody generic domain name I could get my hands (and my meager, graduate student finances) on.
So, the question is, in 10 years what will I be kicking myself for not recognizing now? Damn, I wish I knew.
John
Actually, half the functions you listed as "useless" are things I use on a daily basis.
John
When dealing with IP infringement, using real world examples can be tricky. The theft examples are not quite accurate because you HAVE purchased something. The question is, what have you purchased? You have certainly purchased the physical embodiment of a specific piece of IP, but what rights does that give you?
Even the RIAA/MPAA would agree that you have the right to resell the physical medium without retaining a copy of the item for yourself.
But what copies should you be allowed to make of the IP? Copyright law governs certain aspects of what you are allowed to do and what limits are placed on your ownership.
A more accurate analogy might be asking whether it would be illegal for car manufacturers to place governors on cars that would prevent their owners/operators from exceeding the speed limit.
While consumers might object, the governor would only prevent you from doing something that is already against the law.
John
See, when Anakin was working on R2, he cut his hand and some of the mitichondrians in his blood flowed over onto R2, allowing R2 a limited access to the Force - hence his ability to levitate. The little things that look like rocket boosters are just a side effect of a 'droid accessing the Force.
By the time of "A New Hope", the Dark Side(TM) had blocked access to the Force to a point where the few mitichodrians in R2's system weren't able to access it.
Really. To paraphrase Fletch, "Everything is mitichondrians these days."
John
A similar group in Washington, DC, is called Byte Back. You can check it out at http://www.byteback.org. They can always use teachers (of all levels) as well as contributions of $ and/or equipment.
I volunteer with an organization called Byte Back. http://www.byteback.org Byte Back is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization which collaborates with other DC organizations to provide services to inner city residents. The main service Byte Back provides is computer training for unemployed and under-employed DC area adults and youth in order to increase their skill sets and marketability. Byte Back takes responsibility for equipment, software, curriculum development, volunteer teacher recruitment, training, and supervision. Byte Back has nine partner organizations provide computer lab space and lab time, recruit students, and are responsible for security at the organization's 12 classrooms in the DC area. Byte Back also provides job placement services to its students and graduates. For more info, check out the web site.
It's only tangentially an issue of free speech. When you purchase a piece of software, you agree to a license agreement - the terms of use for that software. This license agreement is a contract between you and the software vendor. The license agreement only applies to your use of the software.
If the license agreement says that you agree that you cannot use the name of the software to say anything negative about the software, then you have agreed, by contract, that as a condition of your being able to use the software, you won't use the name of the software to say anything negative about the software. The only consequence of your breaking this contract is that you have breached the license agreement, and the vendor may have some remedies against you for breaching the contract.
One of the remedies that is available under UCITA is that the vendor can include a back door in the software that would allow the vendor to shut off access to the software if the license is violated.
So, theoretically, if you purchased a game from that site, and if the vendor included such a back door, then if you used the name of the software or other mark to say negative things about the software, then the vendor could use the back door to shut off the software.
John
No. The way this provision works is that if you buy the software, you agree to the license. If you violate the license, then, technically, you either owe the company more money or you are not allowed to use the software any more.
Thus, if you watch your friend play the game, you can say anything you want about the software without violating the license.
There's more of an interesting argument here than immediately meets the eye.
First, UCITA is simply contract law, and the license provisions are simply an aspect of the contract. You have the right to trade away your rights as part of a contract. However, you could argue that such contracts are not in the public interest and should therefore be invalid and unenforceable.
Second, in the copyright/fair use area, UCITA is state law while the Copyright Act is Federal law. You could argue that for these purposes, the "fair use" doctrine is Federal law and therefore preempts this aspect of UCITA.
John
As another attorney, I agree with you on the 80% of the impact for 20% of the work thing.
However, the way I think this works is that since the "no-negative-use-of-marks" provision is part of the license agreement, if you use the marks to make "negative comments" then you have breached the license. If a company were to include the self-help remedies also provided for under UCITA as part of its software, then, theoretically, once you have breached the license by posting "negative comments" the company could reach into your PC and shut off the software.
Granted, this is a pretty extreme action. However, I'm not sure that the law should allow for such an extreme action.
John
Actually, it's not Congress. UCITA is state law. So far, it has only been passed in VA and MD, and it is pending in several other states. The only state that has taken an anti-UCITA stance so far is Iowa.
UCITA is a contract law statute that, if passed in a particular state, would apply to computer software, multimedia products, computer data and databases, online information, and similar products. UCITA is intended to create a uniform commercial contract law for these products. UCITA would generally cover shrink-wrap and click-wrap licenses but, depending on how it is enacted in a particular state could be broader than that.
For a very informative and relatively unbiased look at UCITA go to:
http://www.cpsr.org/program/UCITA/ucita-fact.html
For an anti-UCITA editorial go to:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/ucita.html