ACCESS CONTROL AND OWNERSHIP TRANSFER OF DIGITAL CONTENT USING A DECENTRALIZED CONTENT FABRIC AND LEDGER

Disclosed are examples of systems, apparatus, devices, computer program products, and methods implementing aspects of a decentralized content fabric. In some implementations, one or more processors are configured to provide fabric nodes of an overlay network, including one or more fabric nodes that receive a client's request to access digital content on the overlay network. The request includes an authorization token digitally signed by or on behalf of a user of the client. The fabric node(s) extract a user identifier (ID) from the authorization token, then determine that one or more rules maintained on the overlay network are satisfied. The one or more rules condition access to the digital content upon the extracted user ID matching an ID associated with an owner of a digital instrument. The digital instrument, which can be a non-fungible token, is stored in a blockchain ledger as a unique representation of the digital content.