Skip to content

C2PA Contribution Statement

Our Commitment to Open Standards

EncypherAI is committed to advancing open standards for content provenance and authenticity. While our implementation of text provenance using Unicode variation selectors is protected under the AGPLv3 license, we believe in contributing to the broader ecosystem of content provenance technologies.

This document outlines our approach to contributing to the C2PA (Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity) standard and our vision for the future of text provenance.

C2PA and Text Content

The C2PA standard was initially designed for media files like images and videos, providing a framework for tracking the origin and history of digital content. However, text content presents unique challenges that require innovative approaches.

Our contribution to the C2PA community focuses on extending these principles to text content while maintaining compatibility with the core C2PA concepts.

Our Contribution

EncypherAI is actively contributing the following concepts to the C2PA community:

  1. Text Binding Approaches: Conceptual frameworks for binding provenance information to text content, including our Unicode variation selector approach as one possible implementation.

  2. Content Hash Strategies: Methods for creating cryptographic fingerprints of text content that are robust against format changes while enabling tamper detection.

  3. Verification Workflows: User-friendly approaches to verifying the provenance and authenticity of text content.

  4. UI/UX Patterns: Design patterns for indicating provenance information to users in a clear and non-intrusive manner.

Implementation vs. Concept

It's important to distinguish between our specific implementation and the broader concepts we're contributing:

  • Implementation: Our specific code for embedding C2PA manifests using Unicode variation selectors is protected under the AGPLv3 license and available through commercial licensing.

  • Concepts: The general approaches, patterns, and ideas are being contributed to the C2PA community to advance the state of the art in text provenance.

Participation in C2PA

EncypherAI is actively participating in C2PA initiatives related to text content:

  • Contributing to working groups focused on text provenance
  • Sharing research findings and technical approaches
  • Collaborating with other organizations to develop standards
  • Implementing and testing emerging specifications

Future Directions

We envision several promising directions for text provenance within C2PA:

  1. Formal Text Binding Specification: Development of a formal C2PA specification for binding provenance information to text content.

  2. Cross-Format Compatibility: Ensuring provenance information survives when text is converted between formats (HTML, PDF, plain text, etc.).

  3. Partial Content Verification: Enabling verification of excerpts and quotes while maintaining the connection to the original source.

  4. Integration with Publishing Workflows: Streamlining the process of adding provenance information during content creation and publishing.

Invitation for Collaboration

We invite the C2PA community, researchers, and industry partners to collaborate with us in advancing text provenance standards:

  • Experiment with different approaches to text binding
  • Provide feedback on our concepts and implementations
  • Share use cases and requirements for text provenance
  • Join us in developing formal specifications

Contact Information

For C2PA-related inquiries and collaboration opportunities:

Conclusion

EncypherAI believes that robust text provenance is essential for combating misinformation and maintaining trust in digital content. By contributing our concepts to the C2PA community while protecting our specific implementation through appropriate licensing, we aim to strike a balance between open innovation and sustainable development.

We look forward to working with the C2PA community to establish text provenance as a core component of the digital content ecosystem.