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UCC/Copyright & Licensing Relationship? 

The following news item is taken from the Association of Research
Libraries' Federal Relations Notebook Updates, January 1997.

It is available at the ARL Federal Relations URL:

http://arl.cni.org/info/frn/frnmon.html

We're posting it to this list because it directly relates to at least two
of our discussion topics here, click-able licenses and the relationship of
licenses and copyright.  I would welcome your comments, particularly those
who work in the field of contract law and who have studied this proposed
revision.

For further information on the ARL programs in this URL, please contact
Prue Adler, prue@cni.org.


Thank you, Ann Okerson
Co-Moderator, Liblicense-L
Ann.Okerson@yale.edu

________________________________________

New Article of UCC under Consideration

The National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws is drafting
a new article (Draft Section 2B-308) of the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC).
The UCC forms the basis for contract law in most states. This new article
addresses mass market licenses and would provide that in most instances
"shrink wrap or click on" licenses would be enforceable. For example,
under such a proposal, a license included in a software product could
state that by removing the software's shrink wrap packaging, a user agrees
to waive all fair use privileges associated with use of the software. 
Similarly, the license written by a web page designer could provide that
by clicking on the "next page"  icon, the user agrees to refrain from
copying any facts appearing on the web page. Such proposals would permit
content owners to significantly restrict current rights available to users
of copyrighted materials under the Copyright Act.

Members of the Shared Legal Capability are reviewing the Draft Section in
addition to other parts of Article 2B, Licenses, to fully understand the
intent of the proposals and the possible impact on library services and
users. The proposals are still under consideration and a final draft will
not be presented until the summer of 1997.


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