UCITA: This is a terrible idea!

The commercial interests of this world do not cease to amaze!

UCITA is a proposed state contract law that would encourage uniform licensing standards for "information in electronic form," which usually means software and anything subject to click-through or web-wrap licensing. The law makes such non-negotiated licenses even more enforceable, to the benefit of licensors/vendors. Major proponents are large technology companies, including Microsoft and AOL. Who is opposed to it? Almost everyone else! Libraries, retail and manufacturing companies, consumer advocates, and financial institutions all have cried out against UCITA.

It only passed in two states (Virginia and Maryland). "Great, I don't live in either of those states!," you say? Wrong! A software license with a choice of law provision can choose either Virginia or Maryland as the governing state. (Thanks for nothing, Virginia and Maryland legislators!) Consequently, a handful of states have enacted "bomb-shelter" legislation to protect their residents from such shenanigans. (You win my heart again, Iowa!)

Once again, I'm annoyed about large commercial interests taking advantage of a widely distributed, less rich, less powerful group of interests. I can understand that software vendors want to protect their product. But click-through licenses already exist. (Although are not always upheld in a court of law, but often are (ProCD v. Z).) But when the American Bar Association's working group on UTICA says that it "is a very complex statute that is daunting for even knowledgeable lawyers to understand" you know something has gone terribly wrong. When even the lawyers cannot figure out the legalese, the rest of use have no hope! This is bad lawmaking.

Once again we are hitting upon this question of putting too much into licenses/contracts/laws/guidelines/whatever. CONFU ran up against this problem as previously noted. Here, UTICA would likely dissolve the careful balance of federal copyright law in favor of the software companies. Contracts, laws, and guidelines (usually, not always) make things easy by stating an explicit set of rules that coordinate people's actions when it comes to content use. It could be a good thing if everyone was on the same page. But it is a bad thing when there are competing interests--you lose any flexibility and balance by writing such rules down. (And when you are up against Microsoft, how well do you think that will end for libraries?)