Revocation and Disconnected Authors

Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Windows Server 2003 with SP2

Authors who publish protected content and then later want to work with the content again must have a use license to do so. For online publishing, the use license is obtained by the same mechanism that is used for any recipient of protected content but, by default, it gives the author full rights over the content. If the publishing license includes a usage condition that requires a revocation list, the RMS-enabled application downloads the revocation list from the network.

An author who is disconnected from the corporate network, however, will have difficulty obtaining a revocation list. To accommodate this situation, the client licensor certificate that is used for offline publishing issues a special type of license, called an owner license, in addition to the publishing license. An owner license allows the author to work with the content after it is protected. Even if the rights policy template that is specified for the content requires a revocation list, an owner license never includes a revocation list requirement. This allows disconnected authors to continue working with their content after publishing it, without needing to obtain a required revocation list.