1. A method of protecting electronically published documents, which comprises the step of: operating a computer system, including a copyright server and a document server connected thereto, and a network for electronic publication of documents stored in the document server, and including therein the steps of: a.) receiving requests for documents from a plurality of users having computers with display devices or printers, said computers being connected by said network to said computer system, said requests including unique user identification for each of said plurality of users; b.) authenticating said requests from said plurality of users with the copyright server; c.) using said copyright server to direct the document server to act upon proper authentication of each request; d.) in response to direction from said copyright server, using the document server to create encrypted documents from an encoded document along with a unique identification for each authenticated request and forwarding said documents to each authenticated request user through said network to corresponding agents located at each authenticated request user, each of said agents being selected from display agents and printer agents; e.) encoding a requested document as an encoded document using the document server so that each encoded document created is uniquely encoded based upon said unique identification; and, f.) decrypting said documents at each of said agents and making said documents available for use only in response to receiving correct secret keys provided by said authenticated request user to said agents.
1. A method of protecting electronically published documents, which comprises the step of: operating a computer system, including a copyright server and a document server connected thereto, and a network for electronic publication of documents stored in the document server, and including therein the steps of: a.) receiving requests for documents from a plurality of users having computers with display devices or printers, said computers being connected by said network to said computer system, said requests including unique user identification for each of said plurality of users; b.) authenticating said requests from said plurality of users with the copyright server; c.) using said copyright server to direct the document server to act upon proper authentication of each request; d.) in response to direction from said copyright server, using the document server to create encrypted documents from an encoded document along with a unique identification for each authenticated request and forwarding said documents to each authenticated request user through said network to corresponding agents located at each authenticated request user, each of said agents being selected from display agents and printer agents; e.) encoding a requested document as an encoded document using the document server so that each encoded document created is uniquely encoded based upon said unique identification; and, f.) decrypting said documents at each of said agents and making said documents available for use only in response to receiving correct secret keys provided by said authenticated request user to said agents. 6. The method of claim 1 wherein each of said agents has a unique internal code corresponding to its user.