Abstract: Access control data is transcoded or translated into a unified format. The unified format is acceptable and extensible so that other control languages can be transcoded into the unified format. Rights management information may be converted to unified storage metadata for use in a unified storage system. The construction of a data object that contains data and rights management information comprises transcoding both the original data to the unified storage format as well as transcoding the rights management information from any of a number of platforms to the rights management format used by the unified storage platform. Transcoding may occur in a transacted environment so that failures to complete will not degrade or lose data and rollback is possible if the process fails.