Provenance Generator Beta
Document how a design was made. Get a dated, fingerprinted record and a read on whether copyright can protect it.
If AI touched your work, your copyright lives or dies on what you did — and on being able to prove it. This tool writes that proof down, one design at a time.
Beta: this tool is in active testing. Rule-based, no AI drafts the assessment. Runs entirely in your browser; answers and files are not transmitted. Not legal advice.
How the Bitcoin seal works — in plain English
No crypto knowledge, wallet, or payment required. You never touch Bitcoin — your record does.
Every file has a unique mathematical fingerprint (a SHA-256 hash), like DNA for documents. Change a single character and the fingerprint changes completely. Your record and design files are fingerprinted in your browser — they are never uploaded anywhere.
When you click Anchor, your fingerprint joins thousands of others from around the world and is written into the Bitcoin blockchain, a public ledger maintained by thousands of independent computers that no company, government, or person can rewrite. Everyone shares one entry, which is why it costs you nothing.
You download two files: your record (.txt) and its proof (.ots). Together they let anyone, forever, verify two things: this exact document existed on this exact date, and it has not been altered since. Not because we say so, because the math says so.
Disputes over AI-era designs come down to who did what, and when. A dated, sealed record of your process, made at the time you created the work, is evidence you can put in front of a licensee, an opposing lawyer, or the Copyright Office. Designers who can prove their process will be believed over designers who can only describe it.
This is evidence, not a right. A sealed record proves your document existed on a date and hasn't changed — it does not prove the statements in it are true, and it is not a copyright registration. In the U.S., you must still register with the Copyright Office before you can sue, and register early to unlock statutory damages. Think of this as the file your lawyer will be glad you kept.
Documenting human contributions — common questions
How do I document human contributions for copyright registration?
The U.S. Copyright Office requires applicants to disclose AI-generated content that is more than de minimis and to briefly explain the human author's contributions (88 Fed. Reg. 16,190). The practical way to do this is a contemporaneous provenance record: what the work started from, where AI entered the process, and what you selected, arranged, modified, or created by hand. This free generator produces that record from nine questions, lets you sign it electronically, and seals it with a Bitcoin timestamp so its date is independently verifiable.
Can I copyright an AI-generated design?
Not if the AI generated the expression on its own: prompts alone, however detailed, are not authorship under the Copyright Office's Part 2 Report (Jan. 2025). But your own contributions are protectable, including original material you fed in, substantial manual edits, and sufficiently creative selection and arrangement of AI output. Registration is possible for those human contributions, with the AI material disclaimed on the application.
What is a design provenance record?
A dated document describing exactly how a specific work was made: the tools used, the role AI played, the origin of the work, the human authorship contributions, and the supporting evidence held. Paired with cryptographic fingerprints (SHA-256) of the design files and a blockchain timestamp, it becomes tamper-evident: anyone can verify the record existed, unaltered, on the recorded date.
Is a Bitcoin timestamp legal evidence?
It is evidence of existence and integrity, not a copyright registration. A hash verified against a file is a recognized authentication method (see FRE 902(13)-(14)), and the Bitcoin anchor proves the document existed by the block date without relying on anyone's word. Several U.S. states expressly address blockchain records by statute. You must still register with the Copyright Office before suing on a U.S. work, and register early for statutory damages.
Does this tool use AI to write the assessment?
No. The assessment is deterministic: fixed rules apply the published U.S. Copyright Office framework to your answers, the same way every time. Nothing you enter is transmitted or stored; the tool runs entirely in your browser, and only a cryptographic fingerprint leaves your device if you choose to anchor.