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Version: v1.1

Evidence Assembly & Leakage Projection

Current Methodology Direction

TrackForge ratings are leakage-taxonomy led. Source evidence is an input to the assessment; source-agreement scoring is not the rating driver.

Before a catalogue or track can receive a certificate-facing AAA-D rating, TrackForge freezes a deterministic evidence snapshot and projects that snapshot into the revenue leakage taxonomy. For catalogue workflows, this starts from the ingested-catalog results: the run-scoped findings shown on the /results page are the operational expression of the detected leakage taxonomy state.

Evidence Inputs​

The current workflow uses available TrackForge data-lake and reference inputs for the declared UK/US scope, including sources such as:

  • Catalogue owner metadata and entity mapping.
  • Discogs and Spotify metadata where useful for identity and release context.
  • PRS/SearchWorks WACD work, agreement, chain-of-title, and ISWC data for UK composition pathways.
  • PRS/MCPS client agreement registry data where the workflow needs to distinguish agreement-bound claims from inferred or assumed claims.
  • MLC repertoire data for US composition pathways.
  • Additional PRO data where operationally available.
  • SoundExchange and PPL-related data for neighbouring-rights diagnostics.
  • ACE/GAP-style repertoire data, Companies House data, and other reference inputs.
  • Recovery findings, remediation state, valuation inputs, and operator evidence.

These sources do not form a public "waterfall" whose depth directly determines the rating. They supply evidence. The rating is computed from the leakage conditions that remain active under the declared methodology, as captured in run-scoped findings and the sealed evidence snapshot.

Leakage State​

For each taxonomy item, the workflow determines whether the condition is:

StateMeaning
activeThe leakage condition exists in the frozen evidence snapshot.
inactiveThe condition was tested and is not present.
not_applicableThe condition is outside the subject's rights, pathway, or declared scope.

This state is deterministic. It is separate from:

  • Revenue exposure - the value or pathway affected by the condition.
  • Remediation status - whether a fix has been queued, waived, resolved, or superseded.
  • Review status - operator workflow state.

A later remediation creates a later rating event. It does not mutate the original event.

Results-Page Findings​

The Results page is not a separate narrative report. It is the catalogue's detected leakage state after ingestion and workflow execution. Each finding carries a failure-mode identifier, status, asset, evidence, value tier, provenance, and valuation method where available. Those findings are grouped in the UI by taxonomy mode, industry category, artist, owner entity, urgency, and value tier.

M58 v1.1 treats those findings as the primary leakage-taxonomy input. The rating event then adds sale-diligence signals that may not always be ordinary leakage findings, including agreement binding, ISWC coverage, missing ISRCs, and unmatched population rows.

Mandatory UK Composition Signals​

Where PRS/MCPS scope is part of the workflow, the evidence projection must account for:

  • Agreement binding - whether the work is explicitly tied to a specific PRS/SearchWorks WACD agreement for the client's account.
  • Claim basis - whether the frozen evidence supports a determined/derived agreement-backed claim or only an inferred/assumed route.
  • ISWC coverage - whether a valid authoritative ISWC is present, missing, conflicting, or unresolved.

An unbound work is not automatically unpaid, but it is a real leakage-risk condition because it weakens chain-of-title certainty and increases the chance of dispute, counterclaim, or manual society resolution. ISWC gaps are also rating inputs because they weaken work identity and cross-society registration resolution.

Current Direct Scope​

The current direct certification methodology checks UK and US registration, repertoire, and revenue pathways. It is valid to state that defects in these pathways may propagate into other territories. It is not valid to claim that the current certificate directly checked every global society.

Candidate future expansions belong in roadmap language until they are operationally implemented, versioned, and anchored.

Workflow Failure Is Not A Lower Rating​

If a required step inside the declared workflow fails, the result should be withheld, marked not-rateable, or surfaced as an operational failure. It should not be converted into a lower AAA-D rating. Ratings measure leakage state under a completed workflow, not partial execution quality.

Rating Independence​

Evidence assembly and rating remain structurally separated. Evidence-producing services can write operational data. Rating code reads frozen snapshots and emits deterministic rating events. Methodology versions, hashes, evidence packet hashes, Merkle roots, and proof states bind the output to the exact rules and evidence used.

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