11/01/2005

SealedMedia Inc., a provider of cross-platform enterprise digital rights management (E-DRM) solutions and inventor of Document Lifecycle Management (DLM) systems, today announced that German Sports University Cologne (GSU), has chosen it to protect the university’s digitized intellectual capital.

The following additional details were provided:

By using SealedMedia Enterprise, GSU has also been able to embark on a new revenue-generating business, by publishing content digitally rather than in text book format.

GSU, based in Cologne, Germany, offers research, Ph.D., M.S. and undergraduate programs to more than 7,000 students covering 21 sports-related disciplines, such as applied human movement sciences, sports medicine, educational, social and natural sciences. Among other centers of excellence, GSU is also known for its biochemistry laboratory, certified and authorized by the International Olympic Committee as the accredited Laboratory for Doping Analytics. The university needed to make its research data available to students, and wanted to publish textbooks and learning modules using digital formats. They clearly needed an effective way to protect digital content.

“Because we have many small files in a wide variety of formats, we needed one comprehensive solution that would protect them all, including HTML, PDF, JPG and video,” said Dr. Ulrike Wigger, information and communication project manager for GSU’s technology center. “We looked at a number of solutions, and found that while they might protect one format well, they wouldn’t protect another. SealedMedia Enterprise was the only solution that fit our purposes because it could handle all our file formats.”

GSU’s first product that will be protected by SealedMedia is a tennis training program for German Tennis Federation coaches. Because the 1,500 coaches go through training and exams on a regular basis, using a digital product may make it easier for them to keep up with the training required by the Federation. As the University builds an online store for its growing catalog of digital products, the use of SealedMedia will also grow.

“In essence, we’re embarking upon doing everything in a way we never have before,” Wigger said. “We have many training and teaching materials to share that contain new insights in sports science. Much of that information will be open for public access, because we’re federally funded. Other parts are being reworked, edited and designed to be offered as digital learning materials in the University’s Online Shop. SealedMedia Enterprise will be integral to the process of bringing these materials to the market while protecting the authors’ and producers’ intellectual property rights. SealedMedia control is vital to our future plans in this area.”

“We’re proud to play a role in securing GSU’s catalog of data and look forward to a growing relationship with them in the future,” said George Everhart, chief executive officer, SealedMedia. “GSU is one among many organizations experiencing a sea-change in the way they communicate and bring their products to the market —that means a shift in the way they control and secure their intellectual property rights. SealedMedia is here to provide the protection organizations like GSU need.”