Glossary
AAA-D Rating
The current TrackForge certificate-facing rating scale. It expresses active royalty-leakage exposure under the declared methodology, taxonomy, workflow, and jurisdictional scope.
Blockchain Anchor
An independently verifiable timestamp proof, currently produced through OpenTimestamps where available. A confirmed anchor means the proof has confirmed; pending and local-only states must not be presented as confirmed.
Canonical JSON
A deterministic JSON representation using sorted keys, compact separators, ASCII-safe encoding, and UTF-8 hashing. Canonical JSON lets independent verifiers reproduce evidence and rating hashes.
Chinese Wall
The separation between evidence/remediation services and rating services. Evidence can be assembled and remediated; rating consumes frozen snapshots and emits deterministic events.
Evidence Packet
A frozen JSON snapshot containing the evidence needed by the methodology. Its hash becomes a Merkle leaf or rating input.
ISRC
International Standard Recording Code. A 12-character identifier for a specific sound recording.
ISWC
International Standard Musical Work Code. An identifier for the underlying musical work.
IPI
Interested Party Information number. A rights-holder identifier used by societies and CISAC-linked systems.
Jurisdictional Scope
The direct territory and society pathway scope of a rating event. The current direct TrackForge certification scope is UK and US unless a certificate states otherwise.
Leakage Taxonomy
The versioned set of royalty-leakage conditions that TrackForge tests. Rating state is projected from this taxonomy.
Leakage Vector
A deterministic list of taxonomy conditions and their states: active, inactive, or not applicable. It is separate from remediation status and operator review status.
Legacy Completeness Tier
Historical Gold/Silver/Bronze/Declared fields retained for compatibility. They are not the current certificate-facing rating scale unless a historical certificate explicitly uses that old methodology.
Merkle Proof
A compact inclusion proof showing that a leaf hash belongs to a Merkle tree with a stated root.
Merkle Root
The single root hash committing a set of evidence packet hashes or other methodology-defined leaves.
Methodology Hash
The SHA-256 hash of the methodology artefact or preimage used for a rating. It proves which rules governed the event.
OpenTimestamps
An open protocol for timestamping hash commitments using calendar servers and public blockchain attestations.
Process Fidelity
The core certification claim: TrackForge followed the stated methodology on the stated evidence snapshot at the stated time. It is not a legal ownership guarantee.
Rating Event
The immutable record of a subject's rating under a specific methodology version, taxonomy version, workflow version, jurisdictional scope, evidence snapshot, and proof state.
Workflow Version
The version of the operational checks performed before rating. Workflow version defines what the system directly checked; it is not the same as roadmap scope.