Licenses

A license describes under which terms, where and for how long a set of files may be used. Attaching a license to a folder in the assets tree hides its files from users outside the allowed regions or outside the validity period, and forces users who can see them to accept the terms before downloading.

Fields of a license

The /admin/licenses screen (admin only) lists Name, Usage from, Usage to and Scopes. The Create License / Edit License dialog exposes:

Field	Column	Rule
Name *	name	Up to 50 characters
Usage From	usage_from	Optional date; the license is inactive before it
Usage To	usage_to	Optional date; the license is inactive after it
Usage Scopes *	scopes	Array of print and/or digital
Allowed Regions *	allowed_region_ids	Array of region ids
Details	details	Free text, rendered as HTML in the download dialog

Licenses are listed newest first. Removing a license sets license_id to null on every asset_folders and asset_files row that used it, then deletes the row. Removing a region strips its id from every license; see Groups and regions.

Attach a license to a folder

Licenses are assigned from the Assets tree, not from the license screen. Open a folder under /admin/assets/:id, pick a value in the License select (or No license) and press Save. The asset.update procedure writes license_id to the folder, to every descendant folder, and to every file inside those folders, in one transaction.

The sync process keeps that inheritance alive:

• A folder that is new or that moved to another parent copies its parent’s license_id (upsertFolder in server/src/services/asset.ts).
• A file always takes its folder’s license_id each time the asset updater upserts it, so the file level never diverges from the folder level.

There is no per-file license in the UI.

How a license hides collections and files

The rules live in userCollectionsQuery and userCollectionFilesQuery in server/src/services/collection.ts. For collections the license is read through the linked asset folder (collection.asset_folder_id, then asset_folder.license_id); for files it is the file’s own asset_file.license_id. The check is part of the “public” clause only, which applies to users whose role is neither admin nor guest:

(collection.public IS TRUE AND collection.draft IS FALSE)
AND coalesce(array_length(collection.limited_to_group_ids, 1), 0) = 0
AND (
  <license_id> IS NULL
  OR (
    :regionId = ANY(license.allowed_region_ids)
    AND (license.usage_from IS NULL OR license.usage_from <= now())
    AND (license.usage_to IS NULL OR license.usage_to >= now())
  )
)

Read line by line for a member or manager:

1. A collection or file with no license is visible (subject to public, draft and group rules).
2. With a license, the user’s region_id must be one of allowed_region_ids.
3. If usage_from is set, it must be today or earlier; if usage_to is set, it must be today or later. Both are date columns compared with now().

The whole clause is ORed with the other access paths, so a license is bypassed when:

• the user is an admin (every public collection is visible),
• the user owns the collection,
• the user belongs to a group listed in limited_to_group_ids,
• the user holds a live invitation on the collection or one of its ancestors.

Guests never enter the public clause, so for them the license is never evaluated: they only see what the owner, group and invitation clauses grant.

Note

A manual (non-synchronized) collection has no asset folder, so the collection itself always passes the license check. Its files are still filtered one by one through asset_file.license_id, which means a collection can be visible while some of the files copied into it are hidden.

Users must accept the terms before downloading

Every file returned to the client carries its license as { id, name, scopes, details, allowedRegionIds, expired }. The two download dialogs use it:

• CollectionModalDownloadUnique.vue (one file) shows the license name, its scopes in upper case, and a Checkbox labelled By downloading this asset, I hereby agree to respect the Asset Usage Licensing Agreement. If details is set, clicking the name opens a dialog that renders them.
• CollectionModalDownloadMulti.vue (several files) calls collection.getFiles, which returns the distinct licenses across the selection, lists each one, and shows the same checkbox with the plural wording By downloading these assets, ....

In both dialogs the download button stays styled as inactive until the box is checked, and pressing it anyway shows the error Please accept the terms and conditions to proceed with the download. The acceptance is enforced in the client only; download.create on the server does not receive or check it. What the server does check is visibility: a file the user cannot see because of its license is not returned by userCollectionFilesQuery, so it cannot be added to a download.

Regions show how many licenses cover them

/admin/regions displays a Licenses column computed with ArrayContains on allowed_region_ids. Use it before removing a region to see how many licenses will lose that region.