Client

A joint initiative with Pearson (global education publisher) and Canon (industrial printing technology), deployed at selected public libraries.

Problem

Public institutions often need flexible access to educational materials while staying within copyright restrictions. Several constraints made this difficult:

1. Traditional printing offers no rights control
   Once a digital file is given to a library or print shop, the copyright holder loses visibility and can’t enforce any licensing terms. Piracy risk is high.
2. Legacy workflows can’t support on-demand manufacturing
   Libraries cannot store and manage thousands of publisher-approved digital masters, nor can they maintain per-user licensing metadata.
3. No unified link between catalogs, rights holders, and printing hardware
   Printing, catalog browsing, user authentication, and license enforcement were disconnected systems. Creating an end-to-end workflow was manually intensive and prone to leakage.
4. Pearson and Canon needed a way to print entire books within minutes while ensuring full rights enforcement, auditability, and publisher control.

Solution

Our team delivered a secure IP-to-print pipeline that connected publishers, library catalogs, and Canon industrial printers through a controlled licensing and content-delivery backend.

1. Remote, rights-controlled content storage

• Books were never stored locally at the library or on staff computers.
• Publishers retained all masters on a protected backend.
• For each print request, the printer received only encrypted page data required for that single authorized job.

This eliminated uncontrolled content distribution.

2. Integrated end-to-end licensing workflow

We connected:

• the library’s online catalog
• Aggregion’s licensing and identity engine
• Canon’s industrial print controllers

A student selects a book online, the system checks license conditions, and an automatically issued entitlement triggers the printer to begin job execution. The entire license lifecycle is handled centrally.

3. Hardware-level printing integration

The platform communicated directly with Canon print units:

• Secure job initiation
• Encrypted page transmission
• Validation of each print on a per-user, per-device basis
• Automated stitching and finishing workflows

Students received a full, bound physical book in under ten minutes.

4. Multi-publisher distribution fabric

Once the licensing logic was in place, other publishers could opt in without new integrations:

• Their catalogs became instantly available to libraries
• Libraries and print vendors received rights-cleared access to expanded catalogs
• Licensing rules remained under full control of each rights holder

This created a scalable ecosystem rather than a single-purpose pilot.

Outcome

The deployment provided a working, compliant, and extensible model for on-demand physical book manufacturing:

• Full rights enforcement down to each specific user, printer, and location
• No local storage of protected content, eliminating traditional leakage vectors
• Rapid rollout to new channels (schools, libraries, workplaces) without changing the technical stack
• One aggregated distribution layer where publishers gain instant access to all participating venues and vice versa
• Foundation for physical IP Flow where licensing governs not just digital access but real-world product manufacturing

The system demonstrated that controlled, on-demand printing of entire copyrighted books was viable, secure, and scalable.