Proof of prior existence: date your work before a disagreement arises.
Music, software or any other digital creation: Sealway makes it possible to document that a given version already existed, in that form, on a given date. It creates no rights, names no author and replaces no filing; it fixes a content and a date, for the day you will need to show them.
Built for
- Musicians, beatmakers, producers
- Developers and software publishers
- Freelancers and studios
- Writers, designers, photographers
- Start-ups and R&D teams
- Intellectual property advisers
On the day of the disagreement, the question is no longer “who owns the rights?” but “what existed, and when?”.
A creation may enjoy rights regardless of Sealway. But when a dispute arises, it often becomes decisive to show that a specific version already existed on a given date.
- Was this demo circulating before the release of the track that resembles it?
- Did this software component exist before the collaboration with the client?
- Which exact version was sent to the producer, the publisher, the partner?
- The lyrics, the mock-up, the prototype: in what form, on what date?
- Is the file presented today the one from back then, unmodified?
- How to show it without relying on your own word or on the dates of a hard drive?
A proof at each step that matters.
There is no point in dating every save. The moments that matter are those when a version leaves your hands, or changes in nature: before a sending, at a delivery, at a release.
What the law says, and what it leaves to be proven.
In most countries, including under French law, copyright arises from creation itself: the author of a work of the mind enjoys, by the mere fact of its creation, an exclusive intangible property right enforceable against all (French Code de la propriété intellectuelle, art. L. 111-1), and the work is deemed created, regardless of any disclosure, by the mere realisation, even unfinished, of the author’s conception (art. L. 111-2). The Berne Convention makes the enjoyment of copyright subject to no formality (art. 5(2)); software, including its preparatory design material, is among the protected works (art. L. 112-2 in France, Directive 2009/24/EC in the European Union).
That absence of formality has a downside: nothing dates the creation for you. Under French law the author is presumed, until proven otherwise, to be the person under whose name the work is disclosed (art. L. 113-1); in a dispute, each side has to establish what it created, when, and in what form. A plausible chronology, and files whose date and integrity can be verified, then weigh more than an assertion.
Other mechanisms answer that same question of date, such as the French INPI’s e-Soleau, which, according to the INPI, confers no right on the content deposited. Sealway answers it by another means, the qualified electronic timestamp, without being the legal equivalent of a filing; the detailed pages compare them point by point.
What Sealway does not make it possible to establish.
Sealway establishes that a specific content existed on a specific date, which is often the element that is missing; the rest is a matter for copyright law, the competent bodies and, in a dispute, the court.
- who the author of the work is, nor who holds the rights;
- that the work is original within the meaning of copyright;
- that it does not borrow from an earlier creation by someone else;
- that nobody else already had the same creation before you;
- the actual creation date of an imported file, only its existence at the latest at the time of the proof;
- an intellectual property right, a filing, a registration.
Two use cases.
Each page covers one kind of creation, with the applicable law, the method, what Sealway proves in that context and what it does not.
What a qualified timestamp changes for a creative work.
For a creation, the date is the heart of the matter. When a proof is created, the fingerprint of each file is bound to a qualified electronic timestamp: the date comes neither from your computer, nor from your creative software, nor from Sealway.
- SHA-512 fingerprint of each file: the proof bears on this exact version; modifying the file changes the fingerprint, and the fingerprint cannot be turned back into the file.
- Qualified electronic timestamp: presumption of accuracy of the date and time and of integrity of the data (eIDAS Regulation, art. 41(2)). The date comes neither from the device nor from Sealway.
- Evidence file verifiable without Sealway: certificate, manifest, timestamp token and fingerprints, with the references of the anchoring on public blockchains.
Frequently asked questions
What creators ask before dating a first version.
Do I need to register a creation to be protected?
Does Sealway prove that I am the author?
Which creations can be dated?
When should I create a proof?
Date the next version before you send it.
A file or a set of files, one fingerprint per file, a qualified electronic timestamp, an evidence file a third party can verify. Join the waitlist to be notified at launch.
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