UCC Revisions -- Shrinkwrap licenses

[James Love <love@cptech.org>]

Subject: IP: Shrinkwrap licenses and UCC revisions
   Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 16:34:51 -0500
   From: Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>
     To: ip-sub-1@majordomo.pobox.com


Date: 11 Feb 1998 01:31:47 -0600
From: "Glenn S. Tenney KOTJ" <tenney@think.org>

Just a reminder for U.S. folks:

The Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) is being rewritten with a large
section
to be added specifically covering software and... shrinkwraps /
clickwraps
/ etc.  This is called UCC 2B.

This section would (ok, it's my biased generalization) basically make
almost all shrinkwraps (and clickwraps, etc.) valid and binding.
Shrinkwraps MIGHT limit our rights that copyright law gives us (fair
use...
reverse engineering... etc.).   Shrinkwraps MIGHT allow people to put
boobytraps and self-destruct code into programs and with little
liability.
and on and on.

If you don't think this matters much, how about:   More and more
government
and other documents are being released only in PDF.  And the ONLY
program
available to display these documents has a clickwrap.  You either agree
to
all of Adobe's terms or you can't read these documents.  PERIOD!

If you care either way about any of this, the time is VERY short to
comment.  There's a meeting coming up and comments need to be in this
week.
Here are some links that might prove informative.  The Software Industry
is
a trade group that has its own biases (they 'represent' many software
publishers).


>The new draft of UCC 2B is up. See Background - The Current Draft.
>http://www.SoftwareIndustry.org/issues/guide/bkgd.html#_Toc353089124
>
>The March drafting committee meeting is in San Diego. See Schedule of
>Meetings.
>http://www.SoftwareIndustry.org/issues/guide/schedule.html#MUM
>
>The 2BGuide - A Guide to the Proposed Law on Software Transactions:  Draft
>UCC Article 2B - Licenses <http://www.SoftwareIndustry.org/issues/guide/>
>
>The ETA Forum - A Public Forum on the Proposed Uniform Electronic
>Transactions Act
><http://www.webcom.com/legaled/ETAForum/>


- ---
Glenn Tenney KOTJ       Fantasia Systems Inc.
tenney@think.org        http://www.think.org/
Voice: (650) 574-3420   Fax: (650) 574-0546    Ham radio: AA6ER



----
jl   pssss..  see http://www.badsoftware.com for several UCC 2b
articles.