Access control system for a multimedia datastore

A method, apparatus, and article of manufacture for a computer-implemented access control system. The access control system controls access by users to functions of an application program executed by a computer and connected to a multimedia datastore. Application privileges are defined to control access to functions of the application program which operate upon data items of the multimedia datastore. For the application program, one or more users are associated with one or more application privileges. Access by users to functions of the application program is restricted depending upon whether the user has been associated with the application privilege for the function. If the user has been associated with the application privilege, access to the function is granted, if not, access to the function is denied.