Xerox Corp. and digital rights firm Reciprocal Inc. Wednesday joined forces to offer the Xerox/Reciprocal e-Publishing Clearing Service, designed to allow publishers to be a comprehensive digital rights management service.
ePCS provides an end-to-end service for publishers wanting to place high-value documents,
such as academic course-packs, books and research reports, online in a copyright-protected environment.
Features include file conversion and scanning, document access and cost rules, content hosting and distribution and customer invoicing and rights management. It also allows publishers and content
aggregators to launch e-commerce initiatives quickly and efficiently, the firms said.
As a term of the alliance, Xerox (XRX) took a minority stake in Reciprocal. Financial terms were not disclosed.
The alliance integrates Xerox’s ContentGuard technology, which provides ongoing document protection and usage monitoring, with Reciprocal’s services, which provide rights enforcement and clearing,
informational and financial clearing, tracking, reporting and customer support, said Ranjit Singh, senior vice
president and general manager of Xerox Internet & Software Solutions.
“Both Reciprocal and Xerox are driving adoption of electronic distribution and sales of published materials, a market forecast to be worth more than $3 billion within the next 2 years,” said Singh. “The
new ePCS is a unique service which will enable publishers to take advantage
of the true potential of the Internet with new business models and revenue
opportunities.”
