ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline Volume 12, Number 73 August 5, 2003 In This Issue: [1] NCCUSL ANNOUNCES DECISION ABOUT UCITA [2]AFFECT PRESS RELEASE [1] NCCUSL announces decision about UCITA At the Annual Meeting of the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL) currently in progress in Washington, D. C., the president of the Conference, K. King Burnett, issued a letter to all commissioners announcing the NCCUSL Executive Committee decision to discharge the UCITA Standby Drafting Committee and to stop spending any further resources in promoting the Act. NCCUSL issued a press release on Friday August 1 to announce these decisions. http://www.nccusl.org/nccusl/DesktopModules/NewsDisplay.aspx?ItemI D=56 Despite this significant decision, UCITA remains a proposed uniform act that could be pursued in any legislature. In fact, President Burnett noted in his letter that NCCUSL is "...not abandoning interest in the subject matter." He stated that "UCITA will remain in place as a resource for the American legal and political community and for reference by the courts." This change in NCCUSL strategy falls short of an official "downgrading" of the act to a model law. At last year's NCCUSL annual meeting, commissioners circulated a petition that proposed that the Conference vote on downgrading UCITA but the petition was withdrawn. At the time, President Burnett stated publicly that if UCITA did not gain ABA approval and enactments in at least a few states, they would have to consider a "different approach." Neither goal was achieved. In his letter to the commissioners, President Burnett praised the efforts of the UCITA drafting committee and at no point acknowledged any of the substantive problems of the Act. No mention was made of "bomb-shelter" acts (anti-UCITA legislation) that have been passed in four states (Iowa, West Virginia, North Carolina and Vermont). Burnett also said, "Unfortunately in the real world, sometimes doing the right thing at the right time is not enough. The reality of groundbreaking legislation is that it is often either ahead of its time or comes with great political upheaval, or both. Clearly we are experiencing directed intense and incessant politics and strong opposition, without the suggestion of concrete alternatives, from some consumer groups, insurance companies and libraries, and the allies they have accumulated." The NCCUSL decision is a remarkable one and, as acknowledged by Burnett, is certainly the direct result of the effort of libraries and of AFFECT (Americans for Fair Electronic Commerce Transactions, the national coalition opposing UCITA, which the library associations helped to found. Nevertheless, the decision does not affect the Virginia and Maryland enactments, which remain on the books. Thus, the rationale for bomb-shelter bills remains. In addition, we have just learned that at the September 17, 2002 meeting of the NCCUSL Executive Board, UCITA was taken off the "target list" of acts for active promotion by commissioners. Despite this decision, two introductions were made in 2003 and following the ABA defeat. The president of NCCUSL publicly stated that UCITA would still be promoted in 2003 legislative sessions. Furthermore, other strong proponents of UCITA are not at all bound by this decision and could still promote the Act. Miriam Nisbet, ALA Legislative Counsel and President of AFFECT, and other AFFECT Board members attended the NCCUSL meeting as observers. [2] AFFECT Press Release issued August 4 AFFECT AMERICANS FOR FAIR ELECTRONIC COMMERCE TRANSACTIONS 1301 Pennsylvania Ave. NW Suite 403 Washington, D. C. 20004 Contact: Carol Ashworth v-202-628-8410/ 1-800-941-8478 cashworth@alawash.org www.ucita.com FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Washington, D. C.: The Americans for Fair Electronic Commerce Transactions (AFFECT), the national coalition opposing the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act (UCITA), applauds the decision of the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL) not to spend any additional resources in promoting state adoptions of UCITA. The proposed legislation has been the subject of considerable controversy for a decade. NCCUSL was responsible for drafting the proposed uniform law to provide rules for licensing software and other computer information transactions. On Friday NCCUSL also announced that it would be discharging its Standby Drafting Committee for UCITA. In response to President K. King Burnett's contention that UCITA failed even though it was the "right thing at the right time," Miriam Nisbet, President of AFFECT, commented, "UCITA's failure to take the state legislatures by storm was more than a matter of timing - it was the wrong act as well as the wrong time. We are quite pleased that the Conference has decided to expend no further energy on UCITA." The decision made at this year's NCCUSL annual meeting recognizes UCITA's continued lack of acceptance by state legislatures. UCITA introductions in the Nevada and Oklahoma legislatures failed this year shortly after NCCUSL was unsuccessful in its efforts to garner approval of the Act from the American Bar Association. Also this year, Vermont became the fourth state to take the unusual step of passing UCITA "bomb-shelter" provisions to protect its citizens from the long-arm reach of UCITA. Iowa voted to remove the sunset provision on its similar law that had passed in 2000. WV and NC enacted "bomb-shelter" provisions in 2001. "It is heartening to see NCCUSL backing away from a very flawed statute, but it will never be able to write sound law for the information economy until it takes to heart the criticisms of the user sector, " said Professor Jean Braucher of the University of Arizona College of Law. "The debate is not just 'politics.' There are fundamental policy problems with UCITA." AFFECT is a coalition of over sixty retail and manufacturing concerns, financial institutions, non-profits, consumer advocates, technology professionals and libraries that has successfully opposed UCITA in the more than twenty states that have considered the act since it was enacted in Virginia and Maryland in 2000. xxxxxxx ****** ALAWON (ISSN 1069-7799) is a free, irregular publication of the American Library Association Washington Office. All materials subject to copyright by the American Library Association may be reprinted or redistributed for noncommercial purposes with appropriate credits. To subscribe to ALAWON, send the message: subscribe ala-wo [your_firstname] [your_lastname] to listproc@ala.org or go to http://www.ala.org/washoff/alawon. To unsubscribe to ALAWON, send the message: unsubscribe ala-wo to listproc@ala.org. ALAWON archives at http://www.ala.org/washoff/alawon. ALA Washington Office, 1301 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Suite 403, Washington, D.C. 20004-1701; phone: 202.628.8410 or 800.941.8478 toll-free; fax: 202.628.8419; e-mail: alawash@alawash.org; Web site: http://www.ala.org/washoff. Executive Director: Emily Sheketoff. Office of Government Relations: Lynne Bradley, Director; Camille Bowman, Mary Costabile, Don Essex, Patrice McDermott and Miriam Nisbet. Office for Information Technology Policy: Rick Weingarten, Director; Kathy Mitchell, Carrie Russell. ALAWON Editor: Bernadette Murphy.