1. A method for transferring rights adapted to be associated with items from a rights supplier to a rights consumer, the method comprising: obtaining a set of rights associated with an item, the set of rights including meta-rights specifying derivable rights that can be derived from the meta-rights; determining whether the rights consumer is entitled to the derivable rights specified by the meta-rights; and deriving at least one right from the derivable rights, if the rights consumer is entitled to the derivable rights specified by the meta-rights, wherein the derived right includes at least one state variable based on the set of rights and used for determining a state of the derived right.