{"id":105,"date":"2010-07-27T10:35:40","date_gmt":"2010-07-27T15:35:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/library\/2010\/07\/27\/prof-hillman-on-software-contracts\/"},"modified":"2010-07-27T10:44:20","modified_gmt":"2010-07-27T15:44:20","slug":"prof-hillman-on-software-contracts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/library\/2010\/07\/27\/prof-hillman-on-software-contracts\/","title":{"rendered":"Prof. Hillman on software contracts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/library\/files\/2010\/07\/mouse1.jpg\" title=\"Computer mouse\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/library\/files\/2010\/07\/mouse1.jpg\" alt=\"Computer mouse\" align=\"left\" height=\"205\" width=\"155\" \/><\/a>Our own <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lawschool.cornell.edu\/faculty\/bio.cfm?id=32\" title=\"faculty bio\">Professor Bob Hillman<\/a> and his collaborator <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bu.edu\/law\/faculty\/profiles\/bios\/full-time\/orourke_m.html\" title=\"faculty bio\">Professor Maureen O\u2019Rourke<\/a> of the Boston University School of Law have a forthcoming <a href=\"http:\/\/papers.ssrn.com\/sol3\/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1554546\" title=\"Hillman and O'Rourke article\">article on the law of software contracts<\/a>, which is available on SSRN&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ssrn.com\/lsn\/index.html\" title=\"LSN\">Legal Scholarship Network<\/a> (LSN).\u00a0 Professors Hillman and O\u2019Rourke are not new to the topic: they are the Reporter and Associate Reporter for the American Law Institute\u2019s (ALI) <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ali.org\/index.cfm?fuseaction=publications.ppage&amp;node_id=121\" title=\"ALI Principles\">Principles of the Law of Software Contracts<\/a>.\u00a0 The Principles have been years in the making with a discussion draft submitted to the ALI back in 2007.\u00a0 ALI membership unanimously approved the final draft in May 2009.\u00a0 The current law of software contracts is a messy patchwork drawing from federal <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hg.org\/intell.html\" title=\"IP law guide\">intellectual property law<\/a>, common law, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/ucc\/2\/\" title=\"UCC Article 2\">Article 2<\/a> of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/ucc\/ucc.table.html\" title=\"UCC\">Uniform Commercial Code<\/a>.\u00a0 Thus, the Principles project seeks to \u201cclarify and unify the law of software transactions\u201d by addressing issues of contract formation, enforcement of terms, automated disablement, and contract interpretation, among other issues.<\/p>\n<p>Now, while software and software law may seem mundane in today\u2019s digitally-driven world, the Principles have not been without controversy, especially in the areas of indemnification and warranties.\u00a0 Specifically, section 3.05, \u201cOther Implied Quality Warranties,\u201d has garnered attention.\u00a0 The section creates a non-excludable implied warranty that \u201cthe software contains no material hidden defects of which the transferor was aware at the time of the transfer.\u201d\u00a0 Software providers have expressed concern over the phrase \u201cmaterial hidden defects\u201d and the meanings of the individual words.\u00a0 There is a fear that litigation against them will increase.\u00a0 Professor Hillman addresses the issue of section 3.05 in a thorough <a href=\"http:\/\/www.concurringopinions.com\/archives\/2009\/06\/american-law-institute-approves-the-principles-of-the-law-of-software-contracts.html\" title=\"Concurring Opinions\">blog post<\/a> last summer.\u00a0 It is worth a read and there are several comments that readers should consider, too.\u00a0 They highlight the notion that exciting controversy is not just the domain of constitutional law cases at the Supreme Court!<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our own Professor Bob Hillman and his collaborator Professor Maureen O\u2019Rourke of the Boston University School of Law have a forthcoming article on the law of software contracts, which is available on SSRN&#8217;s Legal Scholarship Network (LSN).\u00a0 Professors Hillman and O\u2019Rourke are not new to the topic: they are the Reporter and Associate Reporter for <a href='https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/library\/2010\/07\/27\/prof-hillman-on-software-contracts\/'>[&#8230;]<\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[316],"tags":[312,313,336],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}