SIPX has been a CodeX research project that aims to establish a marketplace solution for the time-consuming and prohibitively high transaction costs often involved in getting permission to use content. Today, many obstacles exist in traditional mechanisms for content licensing, such as the difficulty of locating the appropriate rightsholders, which commonly result in under-utilization of content or copyright piracy. SIPX seeks to improve access to content by providing an online document delivery marketplace where rightsholders can link up all types of works and negotiate customized licenses more efficiently with users. The system is designed to give rightsholders an additional digital distribution channel, with options to monetize any content on any terms they choose. Users are able to easily identify the conditions on which their desired content can be used, whether it be public domain material for free use, or copyrighted materials for which rightsholders have specified terms and pricing. By automating elements of traditional manual processes, both rightsholders and users can craft their own individualized copyright licenses faster and at reduced costs.

This research project originally commenced under a seed grant through Stanford’s Media X center, and continued under a research gift from Media X and its industry affiliates. In Fall 2011, a SIPX trial deployment on the Stanford campus was undertaken focusing on facilitating the licensing of academic educational print materials. Participating Stanford professors offered their course readers through SIPX, which links to a new print-on-demand system. In the Spring of 2012, the system was used for digital distribution of course materials through Stanford’s learning management system Coursework. In the Fall of 2012, a company named SIPX Inc. was spun out of Stanford to support other universities as well as Massively Open Online Course platforms with copyright cleared distribution of course materials.

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The descriptions of current and past projects of CodeX non-residential fellows are provided to illustrate the kind of work our non-residential fellows are carrying out. These projects are listed here for informational purposes only and are not endorsed by CodeX, Stanford Law School, or Stanford University.