This is seen in DFARS 227.7103-1(c), which essentially quotes verbatim the prohibitions of DOD’s main data rights statute, 10 USC §2320(A)(2)(h):
Code it right insights software#
The second overarching principle was for DOD to acquire only the noncommercial technical data and software “necessary to satisfy agency needs” (e.g., 227.7103-1(a)) while respecting contractors’ private investment by precluding overt government coercion. These common sense and longstanding rules are in jeopardy. Relinquish to, or otherwise provide, the Government rights to use, modify, reproduce, release, perform, display, or disclose commercial computer software or commercial computer software documentation except for a transfer of rights mutually agreed upon. The DOD correspondingly imposed clear limits on what contracting activities could do to infringe commercial software rights: “Offerors and contractors shall not be required to.
![code it right insights code it right insights](https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xNjk1MDYzMC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzNjQ2NjIzMn0.UkSae7dqtQeFSJCF8RYVXkUdtuh73_Fmu64nIqrwVN0/img.jpg)
One really cannot, for example, litigate government contract disputes through AAA arbitration applying California law.
Code it right insights license#
The “unless” in that sentence leaves room for mischief, but DOD largely has confined this exception to rejecting commercial license terms that conflict with sovereign rights. Instead, commercial computer software “shall be acquired under the licenses customarily provided to the public unless such licenses are inconsistent with Federal procurement law or do not otherwise satisfy user needs.” DFARS 227.7202-1(a)(emphasis added). How better to do this than by eliminating contract clauses alien to the commercial world. This makes a great deal of sense if one’s goal is – as DOD’s was - to encourage innovative private-sector software developers to offer their clever advanced technology to the DOD. Let us look at two overarching principals of the 1995 regulations that are most at risk – i.e., embracing commercial software and protecting private investment.įirst, in 1995 DOD took the remarkable step of eliminating any DFARS clause for commercial computer software. And things quickly will be getting much worse for industry’s rights in data, unless industry understands what is happening right now and pushes back on DOD’s proposed regulations and legislative agenda.
![code it right insights code it right insights](https://www.52-insights.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/copyright_bret_hartman-_ted_global_talk._vancouver_2_.jpg)
Regrettably, the water has been draining away ever since and with it the DOD’s fidelity to the core principals of those enlightened regulations and their contract clauses (our familiar friends at 252.227-7013 & -7014). 1995 was about the high water mark of the DOD’s professed affection for commercial items, including software, and DOD’s respect for contractors’ technical data investments. In June 1995, after years of discussions with industry, DOD issued a comprehensive and equitable rewrite of the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (“DFARS”) addressing rights in technical data and in noncommercial computer software and software documentation. The second purpose is to suggest (at the end) practical steps you should consider taking immediately to address the DOD’s actions and diminish your risk.
![code it right insights code it right insights](https://code.visualstudio.com/assets/blogs/2017/02/12/appinsights.gif)
– apt metaphors for being able to recognize the crucial differences between what you now are seeing and hearing from DOD and what its words really mean.
![code it right insights code it right insights](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Eydf_v4W8AQrPOg.jpg)
Code it right insights how to#
That is the first purpose of this article: to tell you where to look and how to break DOD’s code, see through its camouflage, translate its happy talk, pull back the curtain, etc. And the DOD is doing this in plain view, if you know what to look for. The Department of Defense (“DOD”) is proposing the authority to rewrite commercial software licenses in ways never before seen and guaranteed to be rejected by your software suppliers, as well as proposing authority to pressure you – in the guise of “specially negotiated license rights” - to negotiate away your most valuable intellectual property rights while increasing your data delivery obligations. Your rights in technical data and software are at greater risk today than at any time during the last 25 years.