This is a tough one because the language is vague. There is no doubt that UTICA is evil. Iowa has enacted similar legislation, which makes LA's bill look slim and easy to follow.
http://www.legis.state.ia.us/GA/78GA/Legislation/HF/02200/HF02205/Current.html UTICA has been described as evil for legalizing "self help", the remote kill of software, outlawing reverse engineering and even helping terrorists: http://www.affect.ucita.com/ http://slashdot.org/articles/99/06/01/1642234.shtml http://www.campusprogram.com/reference/en/wikipedia/u/un/uniform_computer_information_transactions_act.html http://www.eff.org/IP/DRM/UCITA_UCC2B/20000131_fight_ucita_stallman_paper.html http://www.eff.org/IP/DRM/ http://archive.infoworld.com/ucita/ http://www.infoworld.com/articles/uc/xml/02/01/03/020103ucsecurity.xml Richard Stallman thinks UTICA is even a threat to users of free software : "UCITA does not apply only to software. It applies to any sort of computer-readable information. Even if you use only free software, you are likely to read articles on your computer, and access data bases. UCITA will allow the publishers to impose the most outrageous restrictions on you. They could change the license retroactively at any time, and force you to delete the material if you don't accept the change. They could even prohibit you from describing what you see as flaws in the material." Only Microsoft and Adobe could love and advocate UTICA. The language about freeing LA residents of UTICA is great, but definitions and exceptions may make a mockery of it. Line 14 of the definitions is all encompassing: "'Computer information agreement' means a contract or agreement that falls within the scope of the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act, whether or not that Act actually applies." Then this exemption amendment is troublesome: "The provisions of this Chapter shall not apply to transactions where the law chosen bears a reasonable relation to the parties or their transaction and it is established by clear and convincing evidence that both the choice of the law and choice of forum provisions were specifically bargained for by the parties and the contracts provisions stating choice of law and choice of forum were the product of the fully infomed choice of both parties." That means any shrink wrap license or contract that mentions UTICA forces UTICA, right? I know that sounds far out, but this is the state that legalized "gaming" despite constitutional requirements to actively seek and suppress gambling. Any lawyers on this list want to make me feel better? If we don't have UTICA now, why do we need this bill? Does anyone know how Iowa has fared with their law? As a side note, don't bother to look at www.4cite.org anymore. It's been turned into a vile porn site. The organization is now Americans for Fair Electronic Commerce Transactions (AFFECT)
