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MEDIARGUS EXPANDS ITS SERVICES TO CONTENT USERS BASED ON INFO2CLEAR’S TECHNOLOGY
Added: (Tue Feb 05 2002)
Info2clear, the first European company providing infrastructure for purchasing reproduction rights, today announces a partnership with the digital press databank Mediargus. Readers can now access the databank of Mediargus and pay to view articles.
Mediargus is an initiative of the Flemish publishers, supported by the Flemish government. Mediargus offers professional information users a payable digital overview of the press landscape in the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium and in the Netherlands. To companies that need an overview of important news and trends in their industry, Mediargus offers Mediasearch, the key to a historical and current databank of published articles.
Mediargus is expanding its services. The newest “pay-per-view” service has been developed for professional content users, who do not need to access content on a regular basis. They pre-pay an amount of money, and in exchange, they receive the right to read a certain number of articles.
To make this service operational, Mediargus will use Info2clear’s technology. Info2clear will develop a micro payment system, ‘Prepaid Recharge Card’, and a Certification solution, so that all articles managed by Mediargus can be reused easily - and lawfully. Whenever an article is used, a usage certificate is created automatically. The certificate clearly indicates the source of the article, the user, and which rights to the article the user has obtained. The certificate can be displayed by the user when the article is reproduced, for example, on the user’s website.
“In the future, newspapers that find their articles reproduced without a matching certificate (‘cleared’ Info2clear icon) present, will know it is an illegal reproduction, and so will both the public and the illegal reproducer. It is clear that companies are sensitive to this kind of negative image building,” explains Anthony Belpaire, CEO and President of the Board at Info2clear.
“Thanks to the partnership with Info2clear Mediargus focuses on creating a convenient way for the customers to purchase reproduction rights to the articles. We make it possible for companies to obtain articles in a legally correct way by offering them an infrastructure, which allows them to comply with copyright laws. Because of our large amount of resources, we have a large platform for online clearance of press articles”, says Patrick Lacroix, General Director of Mediargus
For more information:
Anthony Belpaire
Info2clear
Tel.: +32 (0)2 529 59 02
Fax : +32 (0)2 706 52 77
E-mail: anthony.belpaire@info2clear.com
Website: www.info2clear.com
Patrick Lacroix
Mediargus
Tel.: +32 (0)2 740.09.70
Fax: +32 (0)2 740.09.71
E-mail: patrick.lacroix@mediargus.be
Website: www.mediargus.be
Info2clear is the first European company to offer content providers the infrastructure for online copyright clearance. Info2clear also extends a wide range of services (including DRM) to eBook publishers, digital music distributors and offers companies a Secure Document Distribution service.
Info2clear was founded in April 1998. The team of 40 professionals is based mostly in Brussels, with offices in Amsterdam, London, Paris and Madrid. Info2clear is a well-capitalized company. Among the shareholders are ABN Amro Capital Investments and Belgacom Multimedia Ventures.
The company has partnerships running with several major international content providers, such as: Uitgeversbedrijf Tijd, VUM (De Standaard), Roularta Media Group, The Copenhagen Post, Bird&Bird, Forme Communications (e.g. Publishing Magazine), VNU Business Publications, Wegener Group, Emerce and Best of Publishing.
Mediargus is an initiative of the Flemish publishers (De Persgroep, VUM, Uitgeversbedrijf Tijd and De Regionale Uitgeversgroep) subsidized by the Flemish authorities. Mediargus online offers via the site www.mediargus.be all the Flemish newspapers (with all their regional editions), six dailies of the Netherlands, Roularta's magazines and the articles of the online press agency Belga.
Next to the subscriptions to newspapers and magazines, Mediargus offers recently a new service: payment by article. The customer can buy a number of articles via the site. In this way, small firms can also use the databank.
Mediargus exists now for more than two years. Numerous companies and public institutions use their services: The Ministry of the Flemish Community, the Flemish Parliament, the King Baudouin foundation, the Red Cross, OVAM, Umicore, Citibank, Artesia, Slangen & Partners, Mobistar and many others.