http://www.radsoft.net/resources/rants/20010821.html

UCITA is the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act - the software consumer's ultimate nightmare. It has been opposed by every recognised and decent organisation in the world, and promoted by only two: SIIA and Microsoft. The ACM, the IEEE, lawyers and software vendors everywhere have tried to get a word in and protest the way this bill was put together. Their cries have all fallen on deaf ears.

All the while Microsoft has been able to wine and dine the UCITA committee and get them to listen to their every word, accommodate their every whim.

A few of the finer points of software "licensing" as projected by UCITA:

1)As the rule of ownership will no longer apply, you will not be permitted to sell your software to a third party. The age-old classifieds stating "Super box with Microsoft Windows 98 MS Works Encarta" will become illegal. PCs for Kids won't have a debate on its hands - it will have a walloping lawyer's fee.

2)Merchantability goes out the window. Your software vendor will be able to state unequivocally that what you have just licensed may very well be good for nothing at all - you will still not have the right to legally redress them for this failure in their product. It crashes, never works? So what?

3) Licenses apply to only one machine, one person, and one install - sounds a little like XP and .NET, doesn't it? And you may not even give an old box with an old Windows away. (Here's the PCs for Kids spook again.)
UCITA will enforce what is euphemistically called "self-help", meaning any method chosen at the vendor's discretion for disabling your software by remote control, such as through e-mail.

4) Your EULA might not even be included in your software package; it might be e-mailed to you; and whether you receive (and are actually able to read) this EULA will be a moot point: Its verifiable arrival at your e-mail domain (and not in your mailbox) is sufficient to establish your culpability.