ImageRights Blockchain Inscription Service
Upload ImageRights Deposit Copy Certificate of Warranty to authenticate USCO Registration information:
Error
Checking ...
Calculating SHA256 hash of your file.
Retrieving provenance data for {{check_in_progress.hash}}.
File not found
No record for hash {{check_result.hash}} could be found.
This means that either your file has not been inscribed with ImageRights, or that your copy of the file has been damaged or modified.
File not yet recorded
A record for hash {{check_result.hash}} was found.
The file was registered with ImageRights on {{check_result.file_created | date:"dd MMMM yyyy 'at' HH:mm:ss Z"}}, but it has not yet been recorded in a provenance record.
This means that your copy of the file is unmodified, but it is not yet possible to use the Bitcoin Blockchain to prove its existence at this time.
File not yet inscribed
A record for hash {{check_result.hash}} was found.
The file was registered with ImageRights on {{check_result.file_created | date:"dd MMMM yyyy 'at' HH:mm:ss Z"}}.
A provenance record including this file was created on {{check_result.provenance.created | date:"dd MMMM yyyy 'at' HH:mm:ss Z"}}, but it has not yet been inscribed into the Blockchain.
This means that your copy of the file is unmodified, but it is not yet possible to use the Bitcoin Blockchain to prove its existence at this time.
File is authentic and inscribed
The file with hash was registered with ImageRights on {{check_result.file_created | date:"dd MMMM yyyy 'at' HH:mm:ss Z"}}.
The file is included in provenance record which was created on {{check_result.provenance.created | date:"dd MMMM yyyy 'at' HH:mm:ss Z"}}.
The provenance record has been inscribed into the Bitcoin Blockchain with transaction which was submitted before {{check_result.provenance.updated | date:"dd MMMM yyyy 'at' HH:mm:ss Z"}}.
Verification: You can download a copy of the provenance record here to verify that your file hash {{check_result.hash}} is included and that the provenance file matches hash {{check_result.provenance.sha}}. You can view the Bitcoin Blockchain Transaction here to verify that the provenance hash {{check_result.provenance.sha}} is embedded as data inside the Bitcoin Transaction.
Summary: Your copy of the file is unmodified and the Bitcoin Blockchain can be used to prove that the provenance record existed at the time of the Bitcoin Transaction, which in turn can be used to prove that the your file existed at that time.
What is the ImageRights Deposit Copy Certificate of Warranty?
When you register your works with the U.S. Copyright Office through the ImageRights Copyright Registration Service, ImageRights creates a document that contains the registration information, such as USCO registration application case number, the registration date and the thumbnails and file names of all of the images included with the registration. ImageRights then creates a hash of this document as described below and inscribes the hash into the Bitcoin Blockchain.
Once the registration is issued by the USCO, ImageRights automatically updates the Deposit Copy Certificate of Warranty, replacing the USCO registration application case number with the issued USCO registration number. A hash is then created for this updated document and it is inscribed into the Bitcoin Blockchain.
What is the ImageRights Blockchain Inscription Service?
It is sometimes necessary to prove that a file was created before a given date. Such a "proof of existence" can be generated by notarizing the file when it is created. The regular notarization process, however, involves manual work and is costly.
The ImageRights Blockchain Inscription Service provides an instant, cost-free method for us to automatically generate the aforementioned "proof of existence" by inscribing documents into the Bitcoin Blockchain.
How does it work?
The ImageRights Blockchain Inscription Service is akin to writing a code word in the comment field of an online banking transaction. The code word will show up on your banking statement together with the transaction date, which makes it easy to prove that the code word was known at that time.
On the technical side, we use SHA2, an asymmetric cryptographic function, to convert any file into a representative hash value. This hash value can be safely made public, because it is impossible to recover the contents of the file from the hash. As a result, ImageRights can safely and automatically inscribe the hash values for important documents into the public Bitcoin Blockchain.
The Bitcoin Blockchain contains the transaction history and monetary amounts of all Bitcoin accounts. Accordingly, it was designed to be as resilient to failure or modification as your bank account.
And due to the way that the ImageRights Blockchain Inscription Service is implemented, everyone who has access to the file can easily verify that it matches the hash, but it is impossible to create a file to match a known hash. This means that inscribing the hash into the Bitcoin Blockchain proves that the file existed at that time, because it would be impossible to craft a new file matching the previously published hash.