Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act

The Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act ( UCITA ) was a controversial American bill in 1999 establishing new rules of contract law for software. It looked, inter alia, before that license agreements are valid even if the customer can view them only after the purchase of the product. In addition, software companies should be entitled to " off license " message, for example, at the expiration of a license by deleting the internet on the customer's computer. The project was declared in August 2003 failed. However, it was ratified in 2000 in the states of Virginia and Maryland, where he was in 2008 still the law.

Background

Licenses were individually between companies negotiated and signed contracts until the PC came up an anonymous mass market for software. Developed for this area, the " content owner " simplified anonymous licensing process. The free software licenses stipulate according to the same mechanism, the user indicating through distribution or modification of the program, his consent to the license terms. Despite some precedents that confirm the legality of shrink-wrap licenses, yet some courts refuse so far to enforce shrink-wrap licenses.

With the payment of the goods in the store, so the argument goes, a purchase agreement had been concluded. The license that can take note of the buyer only when he opens the package, was an attempt to change the nature of the transaction subsequently by additional conditions. This amended terms must separately agree to the buyer, and it was not enough, a mouse click.

The lawyer Jürgen Siepmann wrote in 1999 for the German legal situation:

This uncertainty should be in the course of the revision of the U.S. Uniform Commercial Code (UCC ), the equivalent of the German Conditions eliminated. The Committee stated:

The reform of the UCC was organized jointly by the American Law Institute (ALI) and the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws ( NCCUSL ) operated as contract law in the U.S. is up to the states. Initially, the provisions were scheduled to computer programs as Article 2b of the UCC, where the law otherwise dealt with trade in material goods.

In mid-1999 gave the parties known that the rules for transactions by computer-based information in a separate framework law, the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act ( UCITA ) should be regulated, which should be implemented in the individual U.S. states. The current version was of 9 February 2000, designed in July 1999. Maryland and Virginia had already enacted such legislation.

The UCITA should shrink wrap ( para. 209) and online licenses (Section 211 ) for the use of " computer information " ( not only programs, but any kind of electronic content that can be processed by a computer, including the associated legalize Section 102.10 ), provided that the licensee has the opportunity to take the terms and conditions in full before he has manifested his consent - Documentation. . In addition, the UCITA should allow access to online information for a certain period of time ( para. 611 ).

Particularly controversial was the passage that would have allowed software vendors, mechanisms for Electronic Self-Help Repossession (about: re-appropriation by electronic self-help ) to incorporate into their products, which can be triggered by the licensee in breach of contract ( para. 816 ). By " re-appropriation by electronic self-help" is meant that the company had received the right, without a court call to a ( real or imagined ) violation by the licensee, to revoke the license and 15 days after a warning by electronic means the program execution to block. In the debate was of "reasonably configured electronic means " the speech. The official comment states:

The " self-help" industry is bound to some conditions ( the section is not even with "Self -Help ", but " Limitations on Electronic Self-Help " titled), but in this " re-appropriation " has been criticism that the legal interest protected privacy ( the hard disk of the user ) in the interest of the law of copyright owners to control the use of their work, should be restricted, and that the interface to the " self-help" could be misused by third parties.

Even a ban on the resale of mass market licenses when it is clearly indicated that UCITA would have legalized (Section 503.4 ).

Further criticism relates to the procedure determined by UCITA Restriction of warranty, which would have enabled software developers to limit warranties due to lack of care of the customer in maintaining the functionality of the operating system installation: This would, according to the criticism made ​​new techniques for monitoring the user is required as well as the limitation of liability led to declining software quality.

The employees of Microsoft lawyer Robert Gomulkiewicz argued that exactly this liability and warranty limitations in the development of open source software is beneficial because it may ward off the risks of the individual working open source developers. The opportunity for commercial software producers in this situation is that it could offer customers better condition.

The engineering professional association IEEE argued that the UCITA undermines the freedoms guaranteed by the U.S. federal law on copyright such as fair use and for purposes of development of compatible products given permissibility of reverse engineering.

The tasks of libraries, such as access to and the preservation of knowledge, can be made contractually and technically impossible ..

Before a takeover of UCITA rules on Germany warned the copyright Commissioner of the Federal Union of German Library Associations, Beger: