METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR HIERARCHICAL ASSIGNMENT OF RIGHTS TO DOCUMENTS AND DOCUMENTS HAVING SUCH RIGHTS

摘要

Digital rights managements (110) allows one or more of usage rights (140) and delegation rights (120) to be associated with a document (100). Through the use of the usage rights (140) and the delegation rights (120), a hierarchy of rights associated with a document (100) is created that provides a tree-type structure of rights extending from the content owner down through one or more users.