Fecha de publicación: 17/05/2007 Fuente: Wipo "digitalization" Systems and methods for managing digital assets in a distributed computing environment are described. Meta-data for the digital assets is stored separately from the digital assets. Meta-data for some of the digital assets is copied and stored at a central location. Meta-data for the digital assets is generated by clients of the system. A method for providing secure restricted access to a digital asset includes: encrypting, by a first computing device, a digital asset; creating, by the first computing device, an executable file, the executable file comprising the encrypted digital asset, permission information associated with the digital asset, and executable code for decrypting and viewing the digital asset; creating, by the first computing device, a digital signature corresponding to the executable file; and transmitting, to a second computing device, the executable file and the digital signature. Corresponding systems and computer readable media with executable instructions are also described.