Exercise 3
New Commercial Law For Electronic
Commerce
I am further of opinion that it
would be better for us to have [no laws] at all than to have them in so
prodigious numbers as we have.
Chap. xiii. Of Experience,
Michael de Montaigne. 1533-1592.
The age of technology has heightened our response to change the law more quickly as needed--change is no longer faddish. A goods-based economy like ours is rapidly giving way to a service-based and digital economy. Existing laws do no adequately address the uniformity of transaction-laws needed for the new millennium. The Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act [UCITA] is intended to respond to our changing needs--as "default rules"--while the nature of commerce is transformed. But there is much opposition to UCITA
Read
"
A world with UCITA may allow fine print to outweigh the right thing"
(http://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/00/11/27/001127opfoster.html)
Read " A Quick Look at UCITA" (http://www.ll.georgetown.edu/aallwash/UCITA2.html)
Read "UCITA: Rules for the Information highway" (http://www.ncsl.org/programs/lis/cip/cipcomm/ring0301.htm)
Read "Myths and Facts" (http://www.ucita.com/what_myths.html)
Read "Disclaiming Liability"
UCITA defines "merchant" as
(46) "Merchant" means a person:
(A) that deals in information or informational rights of the kind involved in the transaction;
(B) that by the person's occupation holds itself out as having knowledge or skill peculiar to the relevant aspect of the business practices or information involved in the transaction; or
(C) to which the knowledge or skill peculiar to the practices or information involved in the transaction may be attributed by the person's employment of an agent or broker or other intermediary that by its occupation holds itself out as having the knowledge or skill.
UCC 2-104 Defines "merchant" as:
(1) " Merchant " means a person who deals in goods of the kind or otherwise by his occupation holds himself out as having knowledge or skill peculiar to the practices or goods involved in the transaction or to whom such knowledge or skill may be attributed by his employment of an agent or broker or other intermediary who by his occupation holds himself out as having such knowledge or skill.
Compare the two definitions. Are those opposed to UCITA "crying wolf" with reason or just "afraid of the dark?" Why is the definition of "merchant" so important in this debate?
Send me an e-mail with your reasoned response (200-300 words).
Send to:ajbolla@gmail.com This is the e-mail I use to receive your work product.
Use "subject" line: ilaw2ucita
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