About Canon
Building the rights layer for creative IP.
Great characters and artworks don't stay with one creator. Fans remix them, sculptors rebuild them, animators bring them to life, and studios want to license the result. Canon makes that chain of work explicit, approved and paid: every work is an NFT that owns its own wallet, every derivative is approved by the work it builds on, and every licence pays the whole family tree, automatically.
The problem
Derivative work is everywhere. Permission and payment aren't.
01
Built without asking
Fan art, 3D models and remixes are made every day with no record of permission. Originals can't say yes, so the best work stays unofficial.
02
Impossible to clear
A studio that finds a great derivative can't tell who contributed, which ancestors allow commercial use, or who to pay. So it walks away.
03
Contributors forgotten
When money finally moves, it goes to whoever holds the file. The sculptor, the colourist and the original artist rarely see a share.
Who it's for
Three sides of one market.
IP owners & communities
Run an official derivative program for a character, collection or brand world.
- Approve the best community work into canon
- Earn a set share of every licence downstream
- Keep control: nothing joins without your signature
Creators & contributors
Build on IP people already love, with permission on record.
- Your file hash and splits are locked at approval
- Get paid automatically on every licence
- Your credit stays yours, even when the NFT sells
Studios & brands
License derivative work with one verdict and one payment.
- Clearance across every ancestor, with reasons
- One transaction pays everyone upstream
- A licence NFT your legal team can verify
Business model
Creators get paid first. Canon earns on top, transparently.
Today the protocol takes no fee: every yoctoNEAR of a licence reaches creators, as the testnet ledger shows. These are the revenue lines we plan to add, each disclosed on-chain or in a public price list.
Protocol · planned
Licence fee
A small, fixed protocol share of each licence, written into a future contract version and visible in every quote before you pay.
SaaS · planned
Canon Programs
Hosted derivative programs for brands and NFT collections: branded submission portals, review tooling, analytics and payout reports.
API · planned
Clearance API
For studios and marketplaces: query any work's lineage, clearance and licence status before you publish, at volume.
Roadmap
From working protocol to production rights layer.
Now · November 2026
Shipped- Registry and keyless vaults live on NEAR testnet
- Approvals, lineage clearance, licence NFTs
- NEP-199 resale royalties up the lineage
- 41 contract tests, 11 attacks refused on-chain
- Open source under MIT
Next · Q1 2027
Planned- Independent security review of the registry and vault
- Mainnet launch
- Pilot derivative programs with NEAR collections and artists
- Licence templates reviewed by IP counsel
Later · 2027
Planned- Clearance API for studios and marketplaces
- Works with multiple parents
- Fiat checkout for licence buyers
- Program dashboards and payout reporting
Principles
How we build.
No master key
No admin, pause or upgrade method. The registry's keys are deleted after deploy; vault code is fixed by hash.
Proof over claims
Every claim on this site links to a test or a transaction. The attacks we defend against are published.
Open source
Contracts, app and deploy scripts are public under MIT. Anyone can verify, fork or build on Canon.
Honest about law
On-chain records are strong evidence of who declared and approved what. They don't replace contracts or courts, and we say so.
FAQ
Questions people ask first.
- Who holds the money?
- Each work's own vault: a NEAR sub-account with no access keys. Only the work's current NFT owner can withdraw from it, through the registry. Contributor shares are held for the contributor to claim.
- What happens when a work NFT is sold?
- The vault and all future income move to the buyer. The seller can't withdraw afterwards, can't sell mid-withdrawal and can't drain the vault while it's listed. Marketplaces that support NEP-199 also pay every ancestor a resale royalty.
- Does registering prove I own the copyright?
- No. It records your signed declaration, the file's hash and a timestamp, plus every approval. That's strong evidence. Legal ownership is still decided by contracts and courts.
- Why NEAR?
- Named accounts and sub-accounts let every work be a real account; global contracts let thousands of vaults share one immutable 3.5 KB program; and fees are low enough for small licences.
- What does it cost to use?
- Registering costs about 0.1 Ⓝ of refundable storage. Licences cost whatever the creator sets. Canon currently takes no fee.
Built by Bootstate
An independent studio building at the edge of AI and on-chain products.
We're working with IP owners, artists and studios to run Canon's first pilot programs. If you hold a character, collection or brand world, we'd like to build its canon with you.