Volume 17, Number 1 • January 2000 |
Reciprocal Announces Digital Commerce Clearing Solution and Partnerships |
Digital Clearing Service 2.0
Paul Bandrowski, CEO and president of Reciprocal, said: “Reciprocal
Digital Clearing Service 2.0 is a total solution and is the first fully
operational commerce clearing service, giving content owners the ability
to protect, control, and audit the distribution and sale of their published
materials. Reciprocal is committed to leading the way toward a robust and
profitable digital content economy.”
Reciprocal Digital Clearing Service 2.0 is a turnkey solution enabling owners, aggregators, and distributors of music, text, software, film, and video to distribute and sell content over the Internet while protecting and ensuring the rights of copyright owners. At launch, Reciprocal Digital Clearing Service 2.0 will support Microsoft Windows Media Technologies, including its integrated DRM platform. Reciprocal Digital Clearing Service 2.0 will also integrate with other DRM solutions, including those from InterTrust Technologies Corp., Adobe Systems, and Xerox Corp.
Reciprocal Digital Clearing Service 2.0 offers an easy-to-implement solution for content providers to control access to purchased files. Services include financial transaction processing, license management, and flexible reporting. Reciprocal Digital Clearing Service 2.0 packaging tools allow the content provider to create and maintain permits (i.e., digital rights) for packaged and encrypted content that specify price, download privileges, follow-on offers for presentation after downloading, etc. The reporting and analysis tools provide many options for viewing aggregated customer data, along with summaries of traffic and sales on an hourly, daily, or weekly basis.
According to the company, Reciprocal’s solution integrates easily with existing Web sites and systems, providing a non-disruptive method of growing a digital-content business. Implementation of Reciprocal Digital Clearing Service 2.0 requires minimal changes to the e-commerce experience consumers have come to expect. In many cases, there is no need for the consumer to install any client software at all.
According to the company, Reciprocal offers the only scalable, digital
clearing service that is multiplatform, multi-vendor, and multi-content
compatible, and capable of handling millions of transactions per day.
Xerox Partnership
Xerox Corp. and Reciprocal also announced the Xerox/Reciprocal e-Publishing
Clearing Service (ePCS), a one-stop digital rights management service for
publishers. The new Xerox/Reciprocal 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. Xerox also announced it has made an equity investment in the
privately held Reciprocal.
According to the announcement, the ePCS covers every aspect of document
protection and Internet distribution, from file conversion and scanning
to setting rules on document access and costs to content hosting and distribution
to customer invoicing and rights management. The joint initiative integrates
Xerox’s ContentGuard technology (http://www.contentguard.com),
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 24/7 customer support.
Adobe Partnership
Reciprocal and Adobe Systems, Inc. (http://www.adobe.com)
have announced that the two companies will work together to focus on the
integration and mutual interoperability of their respective digital rights
management technologies and services. The technology integration will include
Adobe PDF Merchant and Acrobat Reader with Web Buy software, and Reciprocal’s
DRM clearinghouse services.
Source: Reciprocal, Buffalo, NY, 716/845-7800; http://www.reciprocal.com.
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