Method and apparatus for digital rights management policies

A system comprising:

• a policy server machine to store a plurality of different policy templates;
• and
• one or more computer programs operable on the policy service machine to:
• receive a first selection of a policy template from a plurality of policy templates, the selected policy template defining a set of permissions from which to generate a policy for a unit of digital content;
• receive an additional permission with which to augment the set of permissions;
• augment the set of permissions by adding the additional permission to the set of permissions to form an augmented set of permissions for the unit of digital content;
• and
• maintain the augmented set of permissions as a hidden policy for access control usage for the unit of digital content, the hidden policy being unavailable for assignment to a different unit of digital content.

A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium in communication with at least one processor, the machine-readable storage medium storing instructions which, when executed by the at least one processor, provides operations comprising:

• receiving a first selection of a policy template from a plurality of policy templates, the selected policy template defining a set of permissions from which to generate a policy for a unit of digital content;
• receiving an additional permission with which to augment the set of permissions;
• augmenting, using a processor of a machine, the set of permissions by adding the additional permission to the set of permissions to form an augmented set of permissions for the unit of digital content;
• and
• maintaining the augmented set of permissions as a hidden policy for access control usage for the unit of digital content, the hidden policy being unavailable for assignment to a different unit of digital content.