ADC26: C2PA - Cryptographic Music Provenance

Jeremy from Universal Music Group gave us a look at Provenance at Audio Dev 26, a music-focused application of the C2PA standard for describing how a track is made. We heard how the initiative moves beyond a simple AI/not-AI label by capturing "ingredients" such as vocals, instruments, guitar parts and the tools involved.

The work expands the wider C2PA provenance framework into music, with partners including Universal Music Group, Roland and AI For Music. The standard captures which elements use AI and which do not, supporting more detailed credits and disclosure.

Features include hard binding, where metadata is written into MP3 or WAV exports and cryptographically signed. Soft binding via watermarking or fingerprinting can recover a manifest from a database if conversion strips the metadata. C2PA describes the "what", while CAWG addresses digital identity and who is involved.

Workflow centres on implementation by software and hardware makers. At export, conformant tools sign the file with a private key and add provenance data. The standard is open source, free to join, has more than 300 conformant products, and can be adopted in plug-ins, VSTs or standalone software.
More Info: https://c2pa.org/ https://www.universalmusic.com/