Demand publishing royalty accounting system for an electrostatic copier

Abstract

A transaction accounting system for the automated royalty accounting of copyright-coded microfiche documents. The system includes a microfiche copier such as a duplicator and/or hard copy printer, a copier access control system which includes a transaction data terminal for input of transaction information such as the date of the transaction, coded copyright information such as contained in the standard serial numbering or standard book numbering systems, user identification and number of copies to be produced. The access control system includes enabling circuits to access the copier upon completion of the data input and one or more data recorders and/or data transmitters such as an acoustic coupler to permit use of telephone line transmission of the transaction data and/or other transmitting facilities to communicate with a royalty accounting system. In the preferred embodiment, the microfiche documents are copyright coded with an optical bar code and the transaction data terminal includes an optical wand code reader to input the document data and a keyboard for input of other data such as date, user identification, number of copies and the like. The access control system is provided with special sequence operations such as a delete sequence to delete a previously recorded transaction necessitated by returned material, poor copy quality, etc.; an override sequence operation to access to the copiers with incomplete or no transaction data, necessitated by copying of uncopyrighted material and the like; a transmit sequence operation for data transmission to a remote computer, playback of recorded information over the data terminal, troubleshooting diagnostic study and the like, and an incorrect mode selection to correct for mistakes in input information such as the selection of the wrong copier. The input terminal is also provided with a self-prompting display to facilitate input of transaction data in the proper sequence.