Xerox enters the rights management arena with ContentGuard: ContentGuard offers persistent protection with a small footprint.(Product Announcement)

Complementing its efforts to become known as a software and document services company, Xerox has announced ContentGuard, its entry into the growing digital rights-management field. Content-Guard is a suite of products designed to implement rights management over the complete life cycle of a document, not just point-to-point encryption.

ContentGuard, which was developed at Xerox's PARC research facility, also differs from most rights-management products in its server-based operation. It does not require the reader to install any client-side software in order to access documents. A small rights file is sent over the Web with the content.

ContentGuard generates on-the-fly Self-Protecting Documents (SPD) that contain information on access rights. SPD …