The certificate
An Artheia certificate is not a sheet of paper with a stamp. It is three documents held together, and each one proves something the other two cannot.
Three documents, not one
Three documents, three different signatories, three different things proved. Together they are the certificate; none of the three is the certificate on its own.
| The document | Who signs it | What it proves |
|---|---|---|
| The declaration of authorship | The artist, with a qualified electronic signature | who declares. The signing certificate carries the signatory’s tax code, and the identity behind it was established by a qualified provider |
| Artheia’s process | Artheia, with a qualified electronic seal | what was done to that declaration, and that the account of it is ours and has not been altered |
| The deposit receipt | The custodian | that the whole existed then, and has not changed since |
- The document
- The declaration of authorship
- Who signs it
- The artist, with a qualified electronic signature
- What it proves
- who declares. The signing certificate carries the signatory’s tax code, and the identity behind it was established by a qualified provider
- The document
- Artheia’s process
- Who signs it
- Artheia, with a qualified electronic seal
- What it proves
- what was done to that declaration, and that the account of it is ours and has not been altered
- The document
- The deposit receipt
- Who signs it
- The custodian
- What it proves
- that the whole existed then, and has not changed since
It is why the product asks no one to trust a single source.
What binds the three is not merging them, it is the fingerprint: each document has its own, and merging a signed file would make it no longer verifiable. Hence the rule that holds for good: after the artist, nobody touches the bytes of the document the artist signed.
What it attests
It attests that a person, identified by a qualified provider, declared being the author of a work; that the declaration was examined by Artheia through a described and sealed process; and that the whole was deposited with a custodian who answers for it.
Authorship is declared by the artist, not established by Artheia: the certificate does not say the work is genuine, does not value it, and does not replace an expert opinion.
It is also how a seller meets an obligation they already have: article 64 of the Italian Cultural Heritage Code requires the seller to hand the buyer the documentation of the work, where possible with a photograph.
What does not exist yet
The full path of a document has more steps than the ones running today. These are missing, and they are stated rather than left to be assumed:
- the signature check, by a third party who answers for it
- the timestamp
- the electronic seal on the final document
- the report of the checks carried out
- deposit with a custodian
- the deposit receipt, published on the record
While that is so, Artheia declares nothing it has not verified: on the record of a work the signature shows as awaiting a check, and that means there is a signature and nobody has looked at it yet.
The limits, and they are choices
Artheia does not detect copies, because the register keeps no data about whoever verifies a work. That is the direct price of not turning a register of works into a register of people.
Protecting the document is deterrence, not protection: the secret is not the document, it is the key inside the chip.
And the identity of whoever declares is checked by a person at Artheia, by hand: no automated document checking. It is slower, and it is why a newly registered artist cannot deposit anything yet.
The chip is proof against a forger, not against Artheia: the keys are written down nowhere, but it is Artheia that put them there. That is why the chain does not end with us, and why deposit with a third party is not an ornament.
The reasoning in full, with the rules and the boundaries, is in the terms of service and in the nature of the service.