We hope members of this list will be interested in this news, given the concerns about the use of IP addresses as an authentication method for scholarly content.

PSI, the organisation which helps publishers eliminate subscription fraud and IP misuse, has announced the launch of a global registry of IP addresses which we hope will benefit the whole community. The IP Registry will make it easier for libraries to communicate any changes in their authentication details to all publishers who sign up to use the service, saving them significant time and reducing errors. The registry already contains 1.5 billion validated IP addresses for over 60,000 content licensing organisations worldwide.

The full Press Release can be seen below. 

Press Release: Oxford, UK 27th June 2016

Publisher Solutions International Ltd (PSI) launch The IP Registry, which will solve major authentication problems experienced by publishers and libraries.

PSI, the organisation which helps publishers eliminate subscription fraud and IP misuse, today announced the launch of a global registry of IP addresses.

On average, 58% of IP ranges held by publishers are inaccurate, PSI have found. Because of this, a significant amount of content is open to unlicensed access, and libraries and publishers are likely to receive inaccurate usage statistics. Until now, the systems for keeping the IP ranges accurate and up to date have been cumbersome, time-consuming and inefficient for everyone involved.

The IP Registry will make it easier for libraries to communicate any changes in their authentication details to all publishers who sign up to use the service, saving them significant time and reducing errors. The registry already contains 1.5 billion validated IP addresses for over 60,000 content licensing organisations worldwide.

Andrew Pitts, Managing Director of PSI, said "We are the experts in this field as we have been working for over 10 years with leading publishers to identify IP misuse and abuse, cleaning up their authentication databases as we go along. As a result, we have a database of clean and accurate IP details for institutions all over the world. Given IP addresses are still the major method of authentication within in our community we know that this service will benefit publishers and their customers enormously. "

Diane Costello, Executive Officer, Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL), when asked to comment on the original idea said "This product should be an acquisition librarian's dream come true. PSI is constructing a reliable index of institutions' IP addresses which we will also keep up to date. This will save both publishers and their subscribing libraries a whole lot of trouble. From the library perspective, every time their institution updates their IP addresses, the librarian must notify all those publishers and platform vendors with whom they have an electronic relationship. Now, with The IP Registry, they need only need to do it once."

Keith Abbott, Special Projects Manager, John Wiley & Sons commented "PSI has been a tremendous resource for us and our industry peers in identifying and preventing the continuation of subscription fraud around the world. More recently, their ability to use aggregated publisher data to perform a global IP address clean-up has been extremely valuable and has provided us with the information needed to develop a more accurate data set in which we now and will continue to have significant confidence."

PSI is inviting libraries and publishers to find out more and register their interest in the product at http://www.theipregistry.org. PSI will be available at all major events through 2016, and are inviting people to contact them to make an appointment to meet and discuss the registry.

About PSI

Publisher Solutions International, Ltd. (PSI) is an independent third-party, which enables publishers and membership societies to work together securely and confidentially towards the common goal of eliminating subscription abuse and IP misuse.

PSI is the brainchild of two veterans of the publishing world who hold over
30 years of STM publishing experience. It was during their work for major publishers that they recognised the extent of IP misuse and subscription abuse, the damage it was causing, and the need to identify a viable means of putting a stop to it.

About The IP Registry

The IP Registry is a single repository of the validated IP addresses for over 60,000 content licensing organisations worldwide, accessible by both publishers and libraries and maintained for the benefit of the whole scholarly communication community by PSI, based in Oxford, UK and Boston, USA.

Contact Andrew Pitts for more information:

Telephone: +44 (0)1865 849 514
Email: mailto:[log in to unmask]
Web: http://www.theipregistry.org
Twitter: @ip_registry 



Please follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ip_registry

Andrew Pitts
Managing Director
PSI Ltd
Oxford, UK
mailto:[log in to unmask]
Tel: +44-1865-849514
Cell:+44-7818451926
http://www.publishersolutionsint.com/
http://theipregistry.org/

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