What Genvid signs

A provenance record is only as strong as the person who watched the event. Saying an asset is “signed” does not tell you its whole story. Who made it? How did it get here? Who says so?

Most shots are a mix

Most finished shots are a mix. The AI-generated frames came through Genvid, so we watched them get made. The concept art, the dialogue, the sound effects, and the music came from somewhere else, and you told us where. If we stamped the whole thing “signed,” you would know less than you should.

So we do not stop at “signed.” Every asset gets a label that says how we know what we know about it, and that label travels with the asset.

The label has two parts

Part 1: how the asset got here

Every asset carries one of four values:

1. Genvid Witnessed. We watched it get made. You generated through the boundary. Genvid submitted the job, so the provider, the model, the settings, and the time come from a record Genvid created itself. Firsthand knowledge. Tool: ingest_generated_media
2. Externally Attested. You told us where it came from. You made or acquired the asset. Your agent worked out the file’s hash, fingerprint, and details on your machine and told Genvid. Genvid never sees the original file, but we sign your claim, and the record says it is your claim, not something we saw. Tools: register_media, finalize_media_registration, verify_media
3. Uploader Asserted. Nobody vouched for it. Someone uploaded the file and typed in the details, and no one backed those details up.
4. Unknown. We cannot provide information about this asset. It might mean that the asset is not known to Genvid. It might also mean that the studio has decided for itself that its assets are not publicly verifiable (A studio must “opt-in” to public checks on Genvid).

One more thing the record tracks: the file itself. Separately from the label, the record keeps track of whether Genvid ever checked the actual bytes. If your file lives in your own cloud storage, you give us the connection and the object key. We stream the file once, check its hash against the claim you already registered, and mark it connected only if they match. If they do not match, you get an error, not a quiet pass. Tool: connect_media

Part 2: how strong the certification is

When Genvid certifies an asset, the certification gets a strength grade, which we call its tier: witnessed, attested, registered, or unknown.

• Witnessed. We watched the generation and we held the file.
• Attested. We held and signed the file, but you are the one who told us where it came from.
• Registered. We signed your claim about a file we never held ourselves.
• Unknown. The record does not know, and it says so instead of guessing.

The tier is computed from Part 1 and from whether we ever held the file. Nobody can type in a better tier by hand. The system works it out.

Anyone can check a file

You don’t have to take our word for it.

Genvid exposes a public checking utility. You don’t need an account or any relationship with us. Using the Genvid CLI, you can supply a file or a fingerprint, and it tells you whether the file is one we have a record of. If we recognize the file, you get the tier, when the asset was created, and what kind of media it is. You also get a signed copy of the answer, so you can keep it and someone else can check it later without asking us again.

Verification works even if the files have been altered. Provenance metadata is fragile. Usually, if you save a file in another format, resize it, or put it through a delivery pipeline the embedded record drops. Genvid’s check, therefore, does not rely on metadata alone. Instead, it compares the content itself against a fingerprint we recorded when the asset was made, which is why it still recognizes a file that has been re-encoded or resized.

Note: a studio using Genvid must opt their media into this service. By default, Genvid will return “Unknown” for media that hasn’t been opted-in. 

Where the indemnity attaches

If your plan includes an indemnity, it attaches to witnessed-tier certifications: the records Genvid itself observed. Attested-tier records carry your word, and the record says so.

Why we’re telling you this

Sooner or later someone will ask you to prove where your assets came from. When that day comes, you want a record that says exactly what was checked and what was taken on trust. A record that claims too much falls apart at the worst possible moment. Ours tells you the truth up front, so you always know where you stand.