click here to go 'up one level'
IEEE is the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, comprising some 240,000 members.
For the full text, see:
http://www.ieeeusa.org/forum/POSITIONS/ucita.html
Excerpts:
"We urge the state legislatures to reject UCITA.
"...Our concerns are in the following areas:
-
UCITA permits software publishers to enforce contract provisions that
may be onerous, burdensome or unreasonable,...(including) prohibitions
against public criticism of the software ..prohibits the reviews,
comparisons, and benchmark testing that are critical for an informed,
competitive marketplace...
-
UCITA would undermine the protections provided by Federal intellectual property
law and upset the carefully achieved balance between owners and purchasers of
intellectual property. For example, one major protection is that "fair use" case law and
statutory copyright law permit "reverse engineering" for certain important purposes,
such as development of compatible (interoperable) software products and information
security testing...
-
UCITA allows software publishers to disclaim warranties and consequential damages
even for software defects known to the publisher prior to sale, undisclosed to the buyer,
and having damages that can be reasonably foreseen...
-
By legalizing the choices of law and forum often included in software agreements,
especially shrink-wrap and click-through, UCITA would allow software publishers to
make expensive and burdensome any efforts by purchasers to protect their
rights...
"
Click here to give feedback on the site