Description

Any product that promises to stop AI training is selling you something that does
not exist.

That’s the first thing this workbook tells you, and it’s the reason to trust the rest
of it. Nothing available to anyone prevents copying. What these layers actually do is
make your ownership provable, make misuse detectable, and make removal or
compensation achievable. Those are different goals, they need different tools, and
most creators buy the wrong tool because nobody explained the difference.

The four layers, and what each one really does

Metadata, Content Credentials, watermarking, and fingerprinting get used
interchangeably by people selling protection services. They are not interchangeable.
This kit lays them out side by side — what each is, whether it survives being
uploaded, and what it’s genuinely good for — then gives you a threat map that starts
from the risk you actually have rather than the tool someone wants to sell you.

Three of those four layers can be removed by anyone who wants to remove them. The
fourth — the hash you keep yourself — cannot, because it never travels with the file.
That’s why the proof-of-authorship log in this kit matters more than any tool you
could buy.

Where this kit tells you the truth

• Anti-training tools. Glaze and Nightshade have been downloaded millions of
  times. In 2026, researchers at Cambridge, TU Darmstadt and UT San Antonio published
  a method that detects and removes those protective perturbations with reported
  99.98% accuracy. Use them if you like — they raise the effort required — but don’t
  build your plan around them, and don’t pay a premium for them.
• Style isn’t protected. Copyright generally protects specific expression, not
  style. A model producing work that resembles yours without reproducing any specific
  work of yours sits in contested territory. Plan for the risks you can address.
• Content Credentials die to a screenshot. They’re worth applying because they
  cost nothing and help on platforms that read them. They are not a lock.
• Opt-outs are not retroactive. Work published before you opted out may already
  be in datasets, and nothing available to you removes it. You opt out to protect the
  next five years of work, not the last five.

What’s inside

• Content Credentials (C2PA) — where they’re supported as of August 2026, and
  exactly where they break
• Embedded metadata that survives — what to write, by file type, plus a reusable
  rights statement excluding AI training
• Watermarking — visible, invisible, and per-recipient marks that trace leaks
• Hashing and your evidence trail — SHA-256 with working commands for macOS and
  Windows, and what a hash does and doesn’t prove
• Timestamping and copyright registration, both countries. Including the detail
  that costs creators the most money: in the United States, statutory damages and
  attorney’s fees are only available if you registered before the infringement or
  within three months of first publication.
• AI training opt-outs at three layers — your website (with the current crawler
  tokens and the trade-off nobody mentions), platform settings, and dataset registries
• Music and audio specifics — fingerprint matching, content ID, and where audio
  creators actually lose control
• A monitoring routine you’ll realistically keep, and takedown procedure for both
  the U.S. DMCA process and Canada’s notice-and-notice system, which work very
  differently

Worksheets you fill in

Content Credentials setup · embedded metadata · watermarking decisions ·
proof-of-authorship log · registration tracker · robots.txt builder · platform
opt-out log · monitoring log · two structured evidence capture templates.
Ten worksheets, 483 interactive fields.

File details

• 35-page fillable PDF · 483 form fields · instant download
• Canada + United States, every page marked
• All tools, tokens, and platform settings verified August 2026 and date-stamped

Version 2.0 — substantially rebuilt

This edition roughly triples the written content of v1.0 and replaces the repeated
generic worksheet with ten distinct ones. Existing customers get v2.0 free —
check the email associated with your original order.

Educational information only. Not legal advice.

Digital download — please read before purchasing. Because this is an instant
download delivered immediately at checkout, all sales are final and we do not offer
refunds once the file has been downloaded. Every product page lists the exact page
count, field count, and contents so you know precisely what you are buying. If your
download link fails, contact us and we will resend it.