Patent ID: 7873988

Claim:
A method of configuring and managing user rights to distributed digital content, comprising the following steps: generating, by a license server, a level-license for each of a plurality of levels associated with a distribution of at least one digital content, wherein each level-license defines access rights to the at least one digital content by a content recipient associated with a respective level of the plurality of levels; receiving, by the license server, a request from a respective content recipient for access to a form of the at least one digital content; determining a distribution path of the at least one digital content from an originating node to the respective content recipient; determining, by the license server, a respective level of the plurality of levels associated with the respective content recipient based on a number of content recipients of the digital content in the distribution path of the digital content from the originating node to the respective content recipient; and sending, by the license server, one of the level-licenses to the respective content recipient granting access rights in accordance with the respective level of the plurality of levels associated with the respective content recipient, wherein access to the at least one digital content is prevented beyond a predefined level of the plurality of levels.