What is a License?
A license in publica.la's ecosystem defines how content can be distributed and used across different tenants. Licenses control permissions, sharing capabilities, and usage rights for publications.
Types of Licenses
Our system supports four license types, each serving different distribution and business models:
Owner
The foundational license that identifies the original content creator or publisher. This license is automatically assigned when content is first uploaded to the platform.
Key characteristics:
- Identifies the original content owner
- Required for content to be shared in marketplace
- Provides full control over content and metadata
- Enables sharing content with other tenants
Retail
The standard license for marketplace distribution, enabling individual sales across different stores.
Key characteristics:
- Enables content to appear in the marketplace
- Supports individual sales by bookshops
- Core metadata (Author, Publisher, Date, ISBN) can only be edited by the content owner
- Cannot be distributed as loans or assigned to subscription plans
- Used when bookshops take content from the marketplace
Shared
Used for direct content sharing between tenants outside of the marketplace system.
Key characteristics:
- Content appears with the Shared tag in content lists
- Allows modification of keywords and collections by recipient tenant
- Supports manual assignment to plans and users
- Original file download restricted to content owner only
- No revenue sharing model (different from marketplace retail model)