An access manager that detects a derivative work and automatically transfers digital access rights associated with an original work to the derivative work executes on a computing device. The access manager detects data to be written to a storage device and generates a new file signature for the data. The access manager compares the new file signature to existing file signatures, where the file signatures include piecewise signatures. When at least one of the piecewise signatures from the new file signature matches one of the piecewise signatures in the existing file signatures, the access manager determines that the new data to be written to the storage device is a derivative work generated from the existing file. The access rights associated with the existing file signature are copied to the new file such that the file access rights associated with the original work are passed on to the derivative work.