Copyright stays with the author

Every upload is fingerprinted

When a file arrives, the server reads it back and calculates a SHA-256 digest, a short string that changes if a single byte of the file changes. Architra stores that digest with the moment it was taken and the account that uploaded it, and shows all three openly on the work's page.

The record is worth something because anyone can check it. If you hold the file, you can calculate the digest yourself and compare. It shows that this exact file existed in this exact form at that time under that account, which is what a dispute usually turns on.

It does not show who drew it. Somebody who uploads a fellow student's thesis gets a record just as clean as yours. No technical measure can close that gap, which is why reports below matter as much as the fingerprint does.

The file itself cannot be swapped afterwards. An author can change the title, the text, the price and the terms; the file stays as it was uploaded, because a record you can edit proves nothing.

What a sale allows

Every work states its terms before anyone buys, and the author chooses them. There are three steps:

Reference only

Study and reference. Not for construction.

Single build

Build it once, on one site.

Unlimited builds

Build it as often as you like.

The terms in force at the moment of purchase are recorded with the sale. An author who widens or narrows them later changes the offer from that point on, never what somebody already bought. Buyers see their own terms in their library and on the work's page.

Copyright stays with the author throughout. What a buyer acquires is the right to use the drawing in the way the step describes, and nothing beyond it.

Every downloaded file names its buyer

A PDF handed to a buyer gets one line along the foot of every page: who bought it, under which terms and the reference of that sale.

This does not stop anyone passing the file on. Once the bytes are on somebody's disk they are theirs to copy. What the line does is put a name on the copy, so a file that turns up somewhere it should not be can be traced to the sale it came from.

If a work here is yours

Every work page has a form for exactly this. You do not need an account, because the person whose drawing was taken is the least likely person here to have one. Give an address we can reach you at and describe how the work is yours.

A report Architra upholds takes the work off the marketplace, and the author cannot put it back. Anyone who already bought it keeps their download, since those files were handed over before the claim arrived and cannot be recalled.

What the record actually proves

Architra hosts what authors upload and checks none of it in advance. The fingerprint records an upload, it does not verify authorship. Verification of an account says that somebody confirmed who the person is, not that any particular drawing is theirs.

If you are deciding whether to put unbuilt work here, this is what you get: a checkable record of when you uploaded it, terms recorded with every sale, the buyer's name on every file handed out and a way to have infringing uploads taken down. You do not get a guarantee that nobody will copy your drawing.