Media Origin Receipt™ · M.O.R. · the proof layer for media provenancePatent(s) Pending

AI media needs receipts, not guesses.

A Media Origin Receipt™ is an independent, signed, ledger-anchored record of where a piece of media came from: the model, the prompt, the source assets, the edits, the credentials, the attestations, and the rights that traveled with it.

It covers human, AI, and hybrid media in one primitive. It is not a detector's opinion. It is not self-declared metadata anyone can strip. It's a receipt that you, and the people who receive your media, can check against an independent ledger.

What M.O.R. does not do: it does not prove truth from pixels alone, and Hive does not issue or certify C2PA / Content Credentials. M.O.R. binds and independently records the origin evidence and claims that accompany an asset, including watermark and detector outputs as signals, not verdicts, and grades how strongly that evidence can be checked. Origin is recorded and classified, not assessed.
Independent third-party verification: the layer the regulation now asks for.
EU AI Act Article 50 transparency obligations become enforceable August 2, 2026, with an independent third-party verification and detection mandate following by February 2, 2027. California SB 942 shares the August 2 date. C2PA is the named preferred mechanism, and M.O.R. is the independent record that binds to, verifies, and audits it, instead of competing with it.
The ladder · a media asset becomes a trust bundle
01 · the asset
Media asset
An image, video, audio clip, 3D asset, sensor capture, or publication asset.
02 · what came with it
Origin evidence
Model ID, prompt hash, source assets, edit chain, C2PA, signals, attestation, rights.
03 · the receipt
Media Origin Receipt™
Evidence + claims bound into one signed, classified, tamper-evident receipt.
04 · the record
Hive Ledger
The independent, offline-verifiable record the receipt is anchored in.
05 · at scale
R3Pv / Protected Flow
Receipts grouped into proof vectors and policy-bound flows across a pipeline.
06 · capitalized
Proof Credit / trust bundle
Provenance posture read as exportable evidence for buyers, platforms, and insurers.
The wedge · why the existing tools fall short

Detection guesses. Metadata is self-declared. M.O.R. is a receipt.

Each existing approach answers a narrower question, and each has a failure mode that shows up exactly when it matters. A Media Origin Receipt does not replace any single signal. It is the independent record that carries all of them, plus the claims and attestations, into something a third party can verify.

Detection / classifier Metadata (EXIF, self-declared) Watermark Media Origin Receipt™
What it is A model guessing "AI or not" from the pixels. Fields the creator or tool wrote into the file. A pattern the generator embedded in the output. A signed record of the origin evidence and claims that came with the asset.
Independent of the creator? Partly, but it is still a guess. No. It's the seller vouching for the seller. Only if the issuer is trusted & intact. Yes. It's independently anchored on the Hive Ledger.
Survives editing / re-encoding? Degrades fast with edits. No. It can be stripped in seconds. Often broken by crops, filters, re-encodes. Records the edit chain instead of relying on survival.
Covers human + AI + hybrid? No. It's a plain yes-or-no AI framing. Whatever was declared, if anything. No. It only works on the generator side. Yes. One primitive covers all three.
Verifiable by a third party? No. It can't be reproduced. Only as far as you trust the writer. Needs the issuer's detector. Yes. Check the receipt against the ledger.
Failure mode False positives / negatives, no audit trail. Silent, undetectable removal or forgery. Absent, stripped, or unreadable downstream. Honest gaps: it says what evidence is missing.
C2PA says what the file claims. M.O.R. says what an independent proof-state can verify now. Content Credentials travel inside the asset, and metadata can be stripped, lost in a re-encode, or edited. A Media Origin Receipt is an external current-state record. It stays queryable by identifiers (hashes, DIDs, asset IDs) even after the file's own metadata is gone. M.O.R. carries C2PA as evidence. It does not issue or certify it. Hive is not a C2PA authority. Detector and watermark outputs are recorded as signals, not verdicts.
The builder · turn origin evidence into a sample receipt

Build a Media Origin Receipt for your asset.

Pick the media type, state the origin claim, and toggle the evidence you actually have. The receipt below classifies the origin, grades how independently the evidence can be checked, and names the proof gaps, worked out directly from your inputs.

What is being claimed about how the media was made. M.O.R. records the claim and the evidence separately.
Verifiable markers can support independent verification; the others are recorded as claims or signals.
Rights / consent claimed for the asset. For voice & likeness, Consented records a consent reference. It does not verify consent.
M.O.R. is state-bearing: a receipt can carry an open or resolved origin/rights dispute without rewriting history.
Free-text context bound into the sample receipt as a hashed reference field. Do not paste secrets. This stays in your browser.
Media Origin Receipt · your asset
Live preview
Origin classification
Not set yet
The claim and the evidence, recorded side by side.
0%
Evidence strength
Evidence tier Not set yet
Fill out the form above to see this.
Evidence recorded on this receipt
Missing proof · gaps to close
What this receipt is, and is not
Fill out the form above to see this.
Run it yourself, no key needed → Request a production key →
example media-origin-receipt · downloaded above

        
Example library · real receipt shapes

Eight media cases, one receipt shape.

Each card loads a worked example into the builder above, with modality, origin claim, evidence set, rights, and dispute state pre-filled, so you can see the receipt M.O.R. would record for that case. Click a card, then read the classification, gaps, and JSON it produces.

Try the API · issue and verify from the shell

Receipts are an endpoint, not a screenshot.

The receipt backend is live today. Health, a signed sample receipt, and the M.O.R. issue and verify routes all return real, Ed25519-signed envelopes right now. Pick a call, copy it, run it.

No key · no account Run the full loop yourself
Your team can issue a real signed receipt and verify it in one paste. No signup, no activation key, and no data leaves except the hashes you send. Copy this into any shell:
# 1) issue a signed Media Origin Receipt (no auth)
RCPT=$(curl -sS -X POST https://receipts.thehiveryiq.com/v1/media-origin/receipt \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{
    "cryptographic_hash": "sha256:2c26b46b68ffc68ff99b453c1d30413413422d706483bfa0f98a5e886266e7ae",
    "perceptual_hash": "phash:ff00ee11",
    "evidence": {
      "model_attestations": [{"model": "gpt-image-1"}],
      "watermark_signals": [{"score": 0.91}],
      "c2pa_refs": [{"ref": "c2pa:manifest-id"}]
    },
    "rights_state": {"asserted_scope": ["owned"]}
  }')
echo "$RCPT" | python3 -m json.tool     # → receipt_id, classification, Ed25519 signature

# 2) verify the exact receipt you just issued (no auth)
curl -sS -X POST https://receipts.thehiveryiq.com/v1/media-origin/verify \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d "$(python3 -c 'import json,sys;print(json.dumps({"receipt":json.load(sys.stdin)}))' <<<"$RCPT")"
# → {"verified": true, "proof_state": "VERIFIED", "classification": "ai-origin"}
Self-serve today (free, no key): issue, verify, the eight example receipts, /health, and the mor_smoke.sh pilot script. That's everything an engineering team needs to evaluate M.O.R. against its own assets. Keyed / metered (fast-follow): paid /v1/receipt/emit, activation packets for fleet-scale usage, and ledger-anchored production receipts. Start free, and add a key only when you go to production.
Backend health Live
Returns a real status envelope: manifest, replay DB, audit chain, capability graph.
curl -sS https://receipts.thehiveryiq.com/health
Benchmark · measured, not marketed

What the backend actually returns.

A smoke run against the live endpoints, including the M.O.R. issue route POST /v1/media-origin/receipt and verify route POST /v1/media-origin/verify. These are wall-clock round-trips from a single client over 100 iterations, not a production SLA, but every number below is measured, not invented.

Live smoke: receipts.thehiveryiq.com
run 2026-07-08T15:36Z · n=100 issue/verify · p50 of total round-trip
Endpoint
Status
Median
Note
GET /health
200
~148 ms
envelope ok
GET /v1/governance/health
200
~121 ms
signer live
GET /v1/governance/sample-receipt
200
~128 ms
Ed25519 signed
POST /v1/media-origin/receipt
200
~177 ms
signed · ~1.8 KB
POST /v1/media-origin/verify
200
~130 ms
tamper rejected
Live smoke, not a production SLA. Latency includes network from the test client and cold-start variance, so treat it as a liveness signal, not a guarantee. The issue and verify routes return real signed envelopes: issue p95 ~512 ms, verify p95 ~381 ms across 100 iterations. The receipt payload is ~1.8 KB and the downstream R3Pv summary is ~287 bytes. Re-run bash scripts/mor_smoke.sh for fresh numbers.
View example receipt
Where M.O.R. becomes a market

One receipt, many provenance markets.

M.O.R. works across the board. It reads whatever origin evidence a media pipeline already produces. What changes is who is asking for proof on the other side.

Newsrooms · publishers
Publication-asset provenance
Every photo, clip, and graphic ships with a receipt an editor, wire service, or reader can check. Origin gets recorded before publication, not argued about after.
NewsShield →
Studios · agencies · stock
Human, AI & hybrid rights proof
Bind model, source assets, edit chain, and rights boundary to each deliverable. That gives buyers and platforms a verifiable provenance tier they can trust.
Media provenance →
Expert-data · evals
Human-origin dataset attestation
Pair M.O.R. with OriginProof so every human-authored asset in a dataset carries independent origin attestation, not floating metadata.
OriginProof →
Robotics · autonomy
Sensor-capture chain of custody
Camera, lidar, and audio captures get receipted at the edge. Origin and edit chain are preserved for incident review, audit, and insurers.
Machines →
Platforms · marketplaces
Upload-time origin receipts
Accept a receipt at upload instead of running a fragile detector after the fact. Provenance travels with the asset across your boundary.
Receipt Relay →
Regulated & legal
Evidence-grade media exhibits
Media entered as evidence carries a signed origin record that examiners and courts can check offline. Provenance is backed by signatures, not screenshots.
Assurance →
Why this is the proof layer for the media era

Provenance you record, not provenance you argue.

Record at creation, not after the fact

The cheapest moment to capture origin is when the media is made. M.O.R. binds the evidence then, so provenance is a lookup later, not a forensic reconstruction.

Honest about what it doesn't know

A receipt that names its own gaps is worth more than a detector that projects false confidence. M.O.R. grades evidence and lists what is missing.

One primitive, every media type

Image, video, audio, 3D, sensor, and publication assets all resolve to the same signed receipt, checkable against one independent ledger.

Where this fits · the primitive stack

Built on primitives that already ship.

M.O.R. invents no new trust. It records the origin evidence a media pipeline produces and anchors it in the same proof layer as the rest of Hive.

Explore the stack: OriginProof (human-origin attestation), Hive Ledger, Receipt Relay, R3Pv benchmark, Protected Flow Fleets, Proof Credit, media provenance, and Assurance. Verify any receipt at /verify/. Read the thinking: human-origin attestation and logs vs. receipts.

Media Origin Receipt™ and M.O.R.™ are trademarks of The Hive. Patent(s) pending.

Private by design. Hive does not store your prompts. Every request is already receipted by a one-way SHA-256 fingerprint, not the words. Proof, not surveillance.