---
title: "Understanding content ownership in Nutrient"
canonical_url: "https://www.nutrient.io/guides/ios/instant-synchronization/permissions/content-ownership/"
md_url: "https://www.nutrient.io/guides/ios/instant-synchronization/permissions/content-ownership.md"
last_updated: "2026-05-23T00:08:18.111Z"
description: "Learn how to manage document permissions and content ownership in the Nutrient Instant framework (part of Nutrient iOS SDK), including roles of creators and groups in a collaborative environment."
---

# Define document collaboration permissions effectively

Collaboration permissions allow you to define what actions are allowed on a piece of content in a document (annotations or Instant Comments) based on [who created it and what its group is](https://www.nutrient.io/guides/ios/collaboration-permissions/defining-permissions.md#scope). Document Engine tracks this information for all annotations and comments in every document.

## Creator

Creator is an immutable property of every piece of content created with Document Engine. When you specify a `user_id` within the JSON Web Token (JWT) that your application provides to the Nutrient Instant framework for user authentication, each annotation or comment created is attributed to that user. If the JWT claims don’t include `user_id`, the creator of all content is set to `null`.

## Group

The group property was introduced to allow greater flexibility when declaring permissions and managing access to content. Unlike the creator, the group of each annotation or comment is mutable, which means it can be changed either with Server APIs or Nutrient Web SDK. To find out more about the use of group with Nutrient Web SDK, refer to [the group section](https://www.nutrient.io/guides/product-archives-and-deprecated-solutions.md) of the content ownership guide. Note that changing the group of an already created annotation or comment isn’t supported at the moment with the Instant iOS SDK.

Comments can have a completely different group than their [root annotation](https://www.nutrient.io/guides/ios/comments/introduction-to-instant-comments.md#terminology).

## Creator and group in a document lifecycle

Apart from APIs that directly create or modify content — like the annotation creation API — other functionality provided by Server may also add and update content in the document. This is a reference for how these operations affect the ownership information of annotations and comments:

1. When you [upload a document](https://www.nutrient.io/api/reference/document-engine/upstream/#tag/Documents/operation/upload-document), the creator and group of every piece of content is `null`.

2. [Copying a document](https://www.nutrient.io/api/reference/document-engine/upstream/#tag/Documents/operation/upload-document) copies the creator and group information from the original document.

3. [Creating a layer](https://www.nutrient.io/api/reference/document-engine/upstream/#tag/Layers/operation/create-new-layer) with a `source_layer_name` parameter copies the creator and group information from the source layer.

4. [Duplicating a page](https://www.nutrient.io/guides/document-engine/editor/page-manipulation/duplicate.md) copies the creator and group information of content on that page.

5. [Importing a document by ID](https://www.nutrient.io/api/reference/document-engine/upstream/#tag/Documents/operation/upload-document) (and optionally layer name) copies the creator and group information from that document.
---

## Related pages

- [Enhance collaboration with fine-grained permissions](/guides/ios/collaboration-permissions/introduction-to-collaboration-permissions.md)
- [Editing user permissions](/guides/ios/collaboration-permissions/changing-permissions.md)
- [Setting user collaboration permissions](/guides/ios/collaboration-permissions/defining-permissions.md)