Commercial Transactions and International Law computer information transactions play important role in expansion of American national economy. Comparing to 1990, their number has increased by 60%. The increased complexity of these transactions has prompted National Council of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL) to design a new legislation, which would be more effective in dealing with computer information transactions. The new proposed law is called Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act (UCITA).
It defines computer information transactions as: an agreement a primary purpose of which is to require a party to create, modify, transfer, or license computer information or informational rights in computer information. This Act will only serve as a model before its being approved by the States legislatures. Before UCITA, the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) regulated informational and e-commerce transactions within USA.
This Codes implications also varied from state to state and it was also a subject of different interpretations, depending on location. The advent of informational era caused State legislators to come up with some kind of uniform index of regulations, known as UCC in 1966. Before this, what regulated commercial transactions in USA, according to U.S. Constitution, was Congress. Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3 empowers Congress with authority to regulate commerce between States. The most important difference between Article 2 of Uniform Commercial Code and UCITA is that UCC emphasizes that any transactions between vendors and buyers are defined by the terms of contract. That is, buyer receives a copy of any informational or intellectual property, which can be used in any way buyer wishes to, except unlawful ones. UCITA, on the other hand, replaces the public law of copyright with a private law of contract.
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In another words, upon purchasing digital product, buyer automatically agrees to the terms of license, which is to regulate how buyer is using this property, after it is being sold to him. In addition, buyer will not have the right to publicly criticize such product. The legal difference between licensing and selling the product lays in the fact that after being sold, the licensed product is still to be considered vendors property. Since ownership rights were defined by UCC according to public copyright law, buyer used to be generally aware of its rights, regarding the purchased product. With case of UCITA, buyer agrees with the legal terms of products license by the fact of purchasing, without being able to read the terms of actual license, and only then to decide whether to buy any particular product or not. This automatically puts buyer in disadvantaged position.
It is known that many of UCITA provisions were first introduced as additions to Article 2 of UCC. Still, as time passed, they were redesigned as totally separate uniform act. In my opinion, this happened because UCC regulations would still define informational transactions between vendor and buyer according to the principle of public copyright law. In case of inclusion of these provisions in UCC, they would only limit buyers legal rights, regarding the purchased product, when what really needed to be done is to reconsider the whole concept of ownership rights of the part of buyer. The only intention behind this was to severely restrict buyers ability to modify purchased product or to improve it, without vendors consent. Thus, the income of vendors can be substantially increased over limiting buyers rights. The practical implementation of UCITA principles will have a heavy impact on the freedom of free speech, as it will be limited by the terms of contract.
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In my opinion, any infringement of free speech principle is unthinkable, as it will also undermine the first amendment, which is an important part of USA Constitution. UCITA will also affect the normal functioning of public libraries, as it will allow private licensing to supersede the public copyright law, which guaranties people a free access to information. I think that UCITA is not going to benefit American people in the long run, because its principles contradict the fundamental understanding of civil rights and freedoms in this country.
Bibliography:
1. Uniform Law for Computer Info Transactions is Offered. August 30, 1999.
National Law Journal. Retrieved October 21, 2004 from http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/index.jsp 2. Organization. 2002. Uniform Law Commissioners. Retrieved October 21, 2004 from http://www.nccusl.org/Update/DesktopDefault.aspx?t abindex=0&tabid=11 UCITA 101. What You Should Know About the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act. July 19, 2002. American Library Association (ALA) Retrieved October 23, 2004 from http://www.arl.org/info/frn/copy/ucita101.html.
