Document Counterfeits and IP Theft with Blockchain-Certified Evidence.

Brand Registry does not certify an evidence format, so nothing is accepted or rejected on that basis. What the Report a Violation form asks for is the ASIN or the listing URL, the registered trademark or copyright you are asserting, the brand name as registered, and the basis of the complaint. A ProofSnap capture preserves the first and the last of those: the listing page carrying that ASIN, the title, the images, the price and the trademark use, together with the URL, the metadata and the HTTPS status of the page, all hashed and timestamped so the state is fixed to a date. The registration numbers come from your own records. Attach the package to the report, and keep it for any escalation if the same seller relists under a new account.

VeRO does not certify an evidence format either, so a package is neither accepted nor rejected on that ground. A Notice of Claimed Infringement turns on the item numbers, the right you own and your own statement of good faith, all of which come from you rather than from a capture tool. What the ProofSnap ZIP adds is the record of what each of those item numbers actually displayed on the day you saw it: the full-page screenshot, the URL, the page metadata, a SHA-256 hash of every file and a timestamp. Keep those captures, because VeRO is where relisting patterns get argued, and it is easier to show that a seller has reappeared under a new account when you can put the old listing and the new one side by side, with dates on both.

ProofSnap uses OpenTimestamps to anchor a SHA-256 hash of your capture to the Bitcoin blockchain. This creates an immutable, independently verifiable proof that the captured content existed no later than the time of the Bitcoin block that confirms it. Nobody can move that block afterwards, ProofSnap included. Anyone can verify the timestamp using the included .ots file.

ProofSnap captures the infringing page with full metadata, timestamps and a chain of custody log, which gives you an attachment showing what the page contained and when you captured it. A notice under 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3)(A) has six elements: your signature, identification of the copyrighted work, identification of the infringing material together with enough information to locate it, your contact details, a statement that you believe in good faith the use is not authorized, and a statement under penalty of perjury that the notice is accurate. The capture supplies the third of those directly, because the metadata file carries the exact URL, the page as it rendered and the time it was taken. The other five are yours to assert, and no tool can assert them for you.

ProofSnap captures content in real time, so you need to capture listings while they're still live. We recommend capturing suspected counterfeits as soon as you discover them. Once captured, the evidence is preserved in your local ZIP archive regardless of whether the original listing is later removed or modified.

The Wayback Machine archives pages passively and doesn't provide cryptographic proof of capture time, SHA-256 hashing, chain of custody, or court-ready PDFs. ProofSnap creates a forensic evidence package with a blockchain timestamp, a digital signature and full metadata, a record that documents the process that produced it.

A ProofSnap package documents the capture process and lets anyone re-run the checks offline. Rule 901(b)(9) of the Federal Rules of Evidence lists, as an example of evidence that satisfies the authentication requirement, "Evidence describing a process or system and showing that it produces an accurate result." That is the shape of a ProofSnap package. Whether a given record is authenticated is still decided by the court. Each capture includes SHA-256 hash verification, blockchain timestamp, digital signature, chain of custody log, and a forensic report, each of which a reviewer can check independently.

Both, in that order. The listing page carries the ASIN or item number, the title, the images, the price and the trademark use, which is what a Report a Violation form asks about. The seller storefront carries the identity: the other listings, the ratings, the visible contact details. Sellers open new accounts constantly, so a storefront capture is what lets you show a pattern later instead of arguing one listing at a time. Capture the listing first, because that is the page that disappears; the storefront usually outlives it.

A single ZIP holding 11 to 15 files, depending on the plan: the full-page screenshot, the page HTML, the extracted on-screen text, a metadata file with the URL and the HTTPS status, a human-readable evidence PDF, a forensic log, a chain of custody log, a manifest listing the SHA-256 hash of every file, an RSA-4096 signature over that manifest, the public key to check it, and the verification scripts. Professional and above add the OpenTimestamps blockchain proof, and the eIDAS plans add a qualified timestamp issued by Disig a.s., a qualified trust service provider on the EU Trusted List.