A rights-based system is described in which vouchers are employed for creating, managing, distributing, and redeeming rights in digital contexts. A voucher is a digital, possession-based rights representation. An authorization component of the system validates the vouchers and issues corresponding tokens. Access to digital resources is provided in response to presentation of the tokens which are validated by matching voucher refresh values to corresponding values maintained by the system. New refresh values are generated and inserted in the vouchers each time they are redeemed.