New Hope for Small Publishers - Access to technology seen as key to success by Smart Mediary Systems.

Announcing new product: the Smart Mediary System (sMs 3.0) provides low cost access to the leading e-publishing and digital rights management solutions for small to medium-sized publishers. Briefsmart, the first sMs website, has already won awards and earned international recognition for its patent-pending "Many to Many" legal document exchange.

There's Something New On the Horizon... Smart Mediary Systems Launches New Product, Earns International Recognition

While investors and businesses alike scratch their heads and try and figure out what went wrong with the tech economy during the past year, Portland Oregon-based Smart Mediary Systems (sMs) steams forward towards its bright new future.

With its first website, Briefsmart, earning a ``Best Site'' award from a British legal portal last summer, Smart Mediary Systems' new technology appears to be winning many followers worldwide. Not fully unveiled to the public until Wednesday, January 23rd, the newly-released Smart Mediary System is one of the first fully integrated technology platforms enabling the commercial distribution of electronic documents and files over the Internet, complete with digital rights management. By selling access to its mega-database system on a per file or per library basis, sMs has found a way to make the selling of one's electronic work product online both secure and affordable.

Few people have heard of this emerging start-up, but that should change soon. Quietly waiting on the sidelines until the economy showed signs of improvement, sMs has spent the last two years diligently working away at making a solid tech business the old fashioned way: from scratch. No fancy VC firms, no glitzy branding, just a solid product that actually helps both individuals and businesses make more money out of existing knowledge assets. Too good to be true? Perhaps not. A reason for hope may finally be here.

``Until recently individuals, businesses, and niche publishers have lacked an affordable way to protect their electronic copyright interests,'' said Dagan Short, Smart Mediary Systems CTO and co-founder. ``The cost of developing and maintaining an advanced e-commerce website with integrated software for preventing illicit copying and distribution was just too much to bear. We help these clients overcome a huge barrier to entering the digital information marketplace.''

Without an affordable, fully integrated platform, many professionals and publishers have forgone commercializing their most valuable electronic content by not selling it online. With the recent integration of FileOpen's WebPublisher2 into the Smart Mediary System, individuals and publishers can now affordably sell their electronic content with the assurance that their copyrights are protected, even after purchase.

Launched in March 2000, Briefsmart.com was the first website to offer free public access to components of the original Smart Mediary System. Briefsmart's proprietary system makes possible the commercial exchange of electronic documents and files between many buyers and many sellers simultaneously online. Focused on the niche publishing of legal documents and forms, Briefsmart won international acclaim last summer when LawZone, a British legal portal, gave it a ``Top Site'' Award and designated it to be among the best legal information websites on the planet.

About Smart Mediary Systems

Founded in March 2000, Smart Mediary Systems is among the first to create fully integrated technology platforms to facilitate the commercial distribution of electronic files, complete with digital rights management. To view Smart Mediary System features in action, visit www.briefsmart.com.

For more information contact Lockey White, CEO or Dagan Short, CTO and Director of Tech Sales at 503/293-4309.