2 Replies Latest reply: Oct 6, 2014 8:07 AM by markg454 RSS

    rights parameter in Signed URL

    markg454 Community Member
    markg454 Oct 1, 2014 2:39 PM

      Adobe Content Server: 4.2

      Adobe Digital Editions: 4.0.98786

      Platform: Mac OSX 10.7.5

       

      Background:

      I have a tool which builds a digitally signed URL for an ACS fulfillment. With this tool you can include the optional rights parameter and its valid values.

       

      Behavior:

       

      I'm seeing inconsistent behavior with narrowing the rights of a previously fulfilled book.  ADE's 'Item Info' panel only displays the initial rights of the fulfilled book even after removing the book from ADE, deleting all .acsm files and then creating a new URL with different rights.


      Steps to reproduce:


      1. Package a book with no rights restrictions (display all, print allowed, copy allowed)
      2. Create URL with rights, for example rights=$cpy#15#86400#
      3. Download the book via the URL and it opens in ADE 4.0
      4. View 'Item Info'. It will report (these are expected)
        1. Viewing: on any device
        2. Copying: 15 copy with an additional copy accrued every 1 hour 36 minutes, capped at 15 copy, on any device
        3. Printing: on any device
      5. Remove the book from ADE
      6. Delete related .acsm file from the file system
      7. Delete related .epub file from the file system
      8. Create another URL for the same book but with different rights, for example rights=$prn#10#86400$
      9. Download the book via the URL and it opens in ADE 4.0
      10. View 'Item Info' for book in ADE. It will report the same rights as in step 4.

       

      After step 10, I inspected the related .acsm file and it did reflect the new print rights but when ADE was launched using this .acsm file, the 'Item Info' reported the rights from step 4 which I did not expect.

       

      I suspect what is happening is that once a book is initially fulfilled, its rights are immutable regardless of the associated local .acsm XML file. Yes, I've considered what if the end user alters the .acsm XML file to get more favorable permissions.

       

      Lastly, the behavior I'm seeing may not be a real world situation but only related to our testing.

       

      Anyone with insight on what I'm seeing would be greatly appreciated.

       

      Regards,

       

      Mark Gaither - Senior Software Engineer
      LibreDigital - an RR Donnelley Company

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        • 1. Re: rights parameter in Signed URL
          Jim Lester Community Member
          Jim Lester Oct 3, 2014 5:36 PM (in response to markg454)

          The user's previous license exist on the ACS4 server, and since it is more permissive than the new license request, it is used instead.

           

          Another way of thinking about this, is that ACS4 was not designed (and there will be lots of corner cases that will not work) to retroactively take away rights that have already been granted to the user.  (if the user has already fulfilled and downloaded with a completely open license - then they can always uses that, and not the new more restrictive license if they want).

           

          But if you want to go down that route, then you will need to look into removing the original transaction and license for the user from ACS4.

          • 2. Re: rights parameter in Signed URL
            markg454 Community Member
            markg454 Oct 6, 2014 8:07 AM (in response to Jim Lester)

            Thanks Jim for the concise answer. I assumed as much but you pointed out something I missed, that the user could always use the less restrictive .acsm to fulfill the book.