The invention relates to assigning privacy permissions to different components of a single piece of content. An author may designate individual components within a piece of content and may also select a privacy level for each component. Components may be shared in a volatile format wherein the distributed copy of a component may have observation, copying, or forwarding restrictions incorporated into the format. By allowing an author to record and create a single piece of content and then select and apply separate privacy parameters to different components within that content, the invention allows the author to quickly document and share experiences with multiple audiences while maintaining the desired level of privacy for each component of the content. By distributing volatile copies of components, systems and methods of the invention allow an author to maintain some control over distribution and use of content on a component level as well.