CFOG's PIP, February 1986, Volume 4 No. 4, Whole No. 40, page 2

Support Shrink Wrap Amendments

Last year our legislature, in its wisdom, passed a bill known as S.B. 800, the Software License Enforcement Act, making Illinois only the second state to enforce so-called 'shrink wrap' licenses. As part of the negotiations between proponents and opponents of the bill, an agreement was made to make certain changes and to postpone the effective date of the act to July 1, 1986 to allow the discussion of and introduction of amendments to S.B. 800.

The provisions of S.B. 800 are a disaster for users, and don't provide much help to sellers of software. The amendments provide to consumers rights which they reasonably expect to receive when they pay money for copies of software -- like the right to make backups, the right to modify the software to make it run, and the right to sell it when you're through with it.

This year state Rep. Ellis B. Levin of Chicago introduced H.B. 2927 as a vehicle for amendments to S.B. 800. At hearings before House Judiciary I Committee on April 22 (when ye ed was one of the proponents) and April 30 the committee indicated its support of the changes proposed. On the 30th the committee reported the bill to the floor of the House. By the time you get this it may be too late to contact your state representative -- check CFOG RCPM #1 for the latest information, or check for a message on the answering machine at 726-3569. If the bill is to get out of the House it must do so by mid-May. Your support for this bill can have an effect.

Democracy works, but only for those who participate. So call your state rep and senator. At the hearing on H.B. 2927 Rep. Tim Johnson told us that he received 50 to 100 letters from computer users in his district objecting to S.B. 800. That's effective. So, write letters -- you've got a computer, use it. If you haven't done so already, get the names of your state rep and senator and put them in a mailmerge data f ile so that you can quickly write a skeleton letter and get it out to both of them. That's the real meaning of the personal computer revolution - bhc