D-SAFE REGISTRY
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Documentation

Technical and legal reference for the D-SAFE certification standard, the D-CODE licence, and the D.I.C. + K framework.

The D-CODE Licence

The D-CODE (Digital Constitution of Open and Decentralized Ecosystems) licence is a binding legal instrument applied to all content published through D-SAFE certified infrastructure.

Core Obligations

  • Content must be permanently and freely accessible to all.
  • Content cannot be placed behind a paywall, subscription, or access control.
  • Content cannot be removed or deleted by any party, including the original publisher.
  • Attribution must be preserved in all reproductions and derivatives.
  • Commercial use of the content itself is prohibited; the infrastructure may be commercial.
The D-CODE licence is implemented on-chain via the BouncerStorage smart contract on CORE Chain (Chain ID 1116). The human-readable text is stored alongside every certified work on Arweave.

The D.I.C. Base Licence

D.I.C. stands for Decentralized · Integral · Common. It forms the base layer of the full Ꭰ-Licence.

D

Decentralized

Content lives on Arweave (the Permaweb). Guaranteed access for 250+ years. No corporate kill-switch.

I

Integral

Zero money flow. No ads, no sponsorships, no paywalls, no social media, no news. A pure distribution of knowledge.

C

Common

Based on CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 — attribution required, non-commercial, no derivatives.

The K Layer (Certification Overlay)

The K layer — Knowledge — is the certification overlay added to the D.I.C. base to produce the full Ꭰ-Licence and earn the D-SAFE label.

K certification requires passing the zero-tolerance content review (see the exclusions checklist) and verification of human authorship. Without K, a work can carry the D.I.C. licence but not the D-SAFE label.

The K layer is deliberately not automated. Human review is a prerequisite. This is by design: the D-SAFE label is a human certification, not an algorithmic one.

The Certification Process

Certification follows four stages:

  1. Submission — submit the work via the contact form with provenance documentation.
  2. Review — the Registry conducts a manual audit against all zero-tolerance criteria.
  3. Audit Record — a cryptographic hash of the review is published to Arweave.
  4. Certification — the D-SAFE label is issued and the work is published under the Ꭰ-Licence.

The Registry reserves the right to refuse or revoke certification at any stage. All decisions are final.

The Audit Trail

Every D-SAFE certification produces a permanent, immutable audit record. The record contains:

  • A cryptographic hash of the reviewed content.
  • The date and outcome of the review.
  • The version of the zero-tolerance checklist applied.
  • A reference to the assigned Arweave transaction ID.

Audit records are stored on Arweave and cannot be altered or deleted. They serve as the legal basis for any D-SAFE certification claim.

The Ꭰ Character

The mark — Ꭰ — is Unicode code point U+13A0, the Cherokee letter A (pronounced "ah"). It is visually identical to the Latin capital letter A.

The distinctive Ꭰ character (Cherokee letter A, U+13A0) serves as the visual mark of D-SAFE certification. It may only be displayed on works that maintain an active, verifiable audit trail on the permaweb.

Contacting the Registry

The D-SAFE Registry operates as the administrative body for the standard. All enquiries regarding certification, copyright, or provenance must be directed via the contact form or directly to hello@dsafe.legal.

For copyright holders requiring a formal takedown request, please select "Copyright Enquiry" as the subject in the contact form and include the Arweave transaction ID of the relevant content.

Privacy

Enquiries submitted via the Registry contact form are used solely to process and respond to your enquiry. Form submissions are processed securely via Web3Forms. We use Google Analytics to measure site traffic in aggregate.

For data removal requests, contact hello@dsafe.legal.