•Plainly4 minutes

What Legality is for

Almost everything made in this world starts with material. Art starts with nothing: an artist puts a value into the world where there was no material to take it from. That is also why it is so cheap to copy and so expensive to defend. Legality exists to change the second half of that sentence.

Taking a design costs nothing. Defending it costs the author money, time and attention, and after every argument the author goes back to making more work while the other side does not. Nobody can promise to stop the copying. What can be changed is the price of answering it: if the evidence is already there on the day it is needed, the fight is short, and often there is no fight at all.

So Legality is a register. Every file an author uploads is fingerprinted and time-stamped by an independent service as it arrives, which means proof is a by-product of working rather than a project that begins on the worst day. Around that record sit the ordinary parts of a working studio: private portfolios, licences, royalty schedules, invoices, payments.

Who it is for
Artists of any kind: illustrators, pattern and surface designers, photographers, painters, ceramicists, animators. And the brands who licence from them.
What it keeps
The work, its dates, its fingerprints and seals, who has it, on what terms, and whether they paid.
Who can see it
Nobody, until the author makes a link. Portfolios are private, links are made per audience and can be closed.
Who can check the proof
Anyone, without Legality. The seal comes from an outside service and holds even if we are not here.

What it does not do

It does not search the internet for copies of your work. It does not file copyright registrations on your behalf, though it keeps the numbers and dates when you file them yourself. It takes no commission on a licence: the arrangement is between the artist and the brand, and we are the place it is written down. And it never writes to your clients by itself; a reminder goes out because the author pressed a button.

It is also not a shop window. There is no public gallery here and no feed. An artist joins by invitation, admitted by a person, which is slower than a sign-up form and deliberate: a register that let anyone in would be a machine for stamping other people’s work.

What it is trying to be

Not a startup with a launch, but something closer to a bank: quiet, predictable, and worth trusting with records you will need in ten years. That comparison sets the standard we hold ourselves to. Do not lose anything. Do not change the rules without warning. Keep the evidence in a form that outlives us, so that if this company ever stops, the dates an artist recorded here still stand on their own.

Open a real certificate →

A record page for one work: its dates, its fingerprint, its stamp. Nothing here is a mock-up.

Written plainly, and not legal advice. Rules differ by country and change; for a decision that matters, ask a lawyer in the country where the other side is.