Unfinished business

Fortunately, to date UCITA has been promptly beaten down in every state where it’s reared its ugly head. When introduced in states such as Oklahoma and Nevada, it was quickly tabled in committee or withdrawn. Because legislative sessions in many states will end soon, there’s a good chance UCITA will again fail to gain ground this year. And, although UCITA is still on the books in Virginia and Maryland, it's possible Massachusetts and Vermont will join Iowa, West Virginia, and North Carolina as states that enact anti-UCITA “bomb shelter” laws. (For more information about UCITA, visit the Americans for Fair Electronic Commerce Transactions coalition’s Web site at www.ucita.com.)

News on the UCITA front seems good, but it’s not time to get complacent. Remember that we’ve tried to bury it more than once before, only to see it rise from the dead. As I’ve mentioned, the same organization that created UCITA has endorsed some obtuse changes to existing state laws that could have effects similar to UCITA.

And those wishing to stack the legal deck against digital product consumers are very good at pushing their agenda without attracting attention. Case in point: The horrifying revelation that “Super-DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act)” legislation proposed by the motion picture industry has already passed in several states -- including Virginia and Maryland, interestingly enough -- without causing a stir. Presented as an attempt to strengthen laws prohibiting theft of television and telephone services, the laws actually appear to have all manner of consequences, including making it a crime to use basic security technologies such as encryption, firewalls, or routers that employ NAT. Isn’t it remarkable what our politicians will do when no one’s looking?

Because the gripes I’ve been covering here show no sign of stopping, I’m not going to stop addressing them, either. It's my intention to keep publishing this column or one very much like it. To do so, I’m going to borrow a little from the open-source philosophy and publish an e-mail newsletter that is free to all who want to read it. And, if possible, I’d also like to keep it ad-free because gripes and ads don’t really mix.

How is this going to work exactly? I’m not sure, but it will be fun to find out. If you’re interested in coming along for the ride, write to me at newcolumn@gripe2ed.com and find out how you can get a free subscription. Or, assuming I can keep it from crashing, come visit my new Web site at www.gripe2ed.com to see how it all works out.

I want to thankInfoWorld for letting me do this for 10 years. Even more so, I thank all my readers for a decade of submitting gripes for me to take up. It’s been a blast. Now let’s see if we can go for another 10.