From Platform to Protocol
CORPUS is being built in the open. Some of what you read here is live, some is still design intent — expect it to evolve.
CORPUS today is a platform: Sofilab operates the infrastructure, contributors upload through a single point of entry, and the system validates the licensing and royalty model on a live dataset. That is the only sensible starting point — running an open protocol before its mechanics are proven would invite the same fragmentation that already breaks CMO responses to AI training.
Over time, CORPUS evolves into an open protocol that other services embed. The platform stays as one entry point; it stops being the only one.
What "protocol" means in practice
The protocol is the set of rules: how contributions are evaluated, how licenses are structured, how provenance is tracked, how participation rights are allocated. Once stable and audited, those rules can be embedded into the tools where musicians already work.
- Distribution services. Musicians uploading to platforms like MusicHub, TuneCore, DistroKid, or Bandcamp could see an additional option at distribution time: also register with CORPUS. The contribution is registered in one step, often without leaving the distributor's flow.
- Existing rights metadata. CORPUS can reuse the metadata the distributor already holds, or import structured data via standards like DDEX — with only a lightweight, AI-specific consent declaration added on top.
- Creative tools. In DAWs and music apps, CORPUS appears as a native publishing or export target alongside existing distribution endpoints.
A musician using these tools does not need to know they are interacting with CORPUS. They opt in to AI-training licensing the same way they already opt in to streaming distribution.
Phased commitment, not phased ambition
Both states — platform now, protocol later — share the same design: input-side licensing, transparent scoring, contributor participation through royalties and CRPS, a dataset that never leaves CORPUS infrastructure. What changes between phases is the surface area: who can plug in, where contributions originate from, how rights metadata flows.
The architectural separation that supports this is in The Three-Layer Architecture. The governance evolution that runs in parallel — from a Sofilab-operated scoring jury to a foundation-administered protocol — is in The Foundation.