INFOWORLD GRIPE LINE BY ED FOSTER Bookmark this page

  
Replying To:
DRM (none / 0) (#8)
by Anonymous User on Fri Nov 14, 2003 at 05:04:02 PM PDT

Ed, Not surprising. One of the "advantages" for UCITA's proponents inherent in the decision to shelve UCITA is avoidance of some of the restrictions -- including those concerning remote termination of use or use rights -- that had to be accepted in negotiations leading to UCITA's approval. Now, reliance on DRM provisions in DMCA, and how vendors choose to interpret what they permit by contract. Little cost. ProCD validated contract restrictions -- and held that they do not conflict with Copyright Act, and therefore are not preempted. UCITA really became irrelavent once the Federal Circuit decision in Bowers v. Baystate substantially extended ProCD preemption conclusion to hold that a standard shrinkwrap term that "preempts" Copyright Act "fair use" (reverse engineering) is not preempted because Copyright Act does not preempt state contract law and its terms, there was but one additional thing to achieve. That was done by victory in getting ALI and NCCUSL to agree that revised UCC Article 2 will not apply to "information" as subject matter of contract. In combination, the package of those things accomplished almost all that software and database industries insisted that UCITA spell out in endless pages of incredibly detailed and often purpose-obscuring language. Certainly enough so that it was no longer necessary to invest enormous time, effort and dollars in lobbying state-by-state with remarkably little success to get UCITA enacted by state legislatures.


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