Terminology - Reflections Talent API

This page specifies the meaning of every term the Talent License Protocol uses, and the formats of identifiers and addresses. A term defined here has this meaning wherever it appears in the Standard, in code font or not.

Parties

Term	Definition
Talent	A person whose name, likeness, voice or other identity is protected through a license server. Identified by a `tal_` ID.
Representative	An account that acts for a talent under a mandate. A mandate names powers: `issue_licenses`, `review_outputs`, `revoke`, `receive_statements`. The talent can end a mandate at any time.
Licensee	The account that holds a license. A licensee is either a platform (a platform license, for its end users) or a platform’s customer, such as a brand (a customer license).
Platform	The protocol role that generates a talent for end users or licensees. See Overview.
End user	The person a platform acts for in one request. Never a licensee. Identified only by an opaque, platform-scoped ID.
Connection	A licensee’s permission for a platform to run checks under the licensee’s licenses. How it is created is implementation-specific.
License server	The protocol role that holds licenses and postures and decides. Identified by its issuer.
Issuer	The HTTPS origin that identifies a license server, such as `https://app.reflections.ai`. It is the `iss` of every token and receipt the license server signs.
Generation tool	The protocol role that runs a model and verifies tokens before it does.
Verifier	The protocol role that checks a receipt and reads its live status.

Identity and licenses

Term	Definition
Facet	One part of a talent’s identity that a license can cover, identified by an `fct_` ID. Its `type` is one of `name`, `likeness`, `voice`, `twin` (a persona that speaks or writes as the talent) or `knowledge` (a body of the talent’s own words a model may draw on).
Posture	The talent’s standing, public answers for uses that no license covers. A posture is a default declaration and a list of rules.
Declaration	One of `allowed` (no license needed; meet the rule’s obligations), `license_required` (a license is needed) or `prohibited` (never, and no license can change it).
License	A talent’s signed permission for one licensee, identified by a `lic_` ID. Its status is one of `pending_acceptance`, `scheduled`, `active`, `suspended`, `expired`, `declined`, `revoked`.
License revision	One signed version of a license’s terms, identified by an `lrv_` ID. Its terms never change. A license has one current revision. The talent’s side signs a revision first; a revision after the first becomes current when the licensee accepts it, by adding its signature.
Terms	The signed document of a license revision, exactly as signed.
Terms digest	`sha256:` followed by the lowercase hex SHA-256 of the terms in the `tlp-json-1` canonical form.
Scope	The license revision’s terms in normalized form. When scope and terms disagree, the terms govern.
Checked term	A term the license server enforces at the check, the generation or the session.
Recorded term	A term that is signed and shown but not enforced.

Decisions

Term	Definition
Use	A description of what will be generated and how it will be used: `modality`, `kind`, `purpose`, `commercial`, `channels`, `territories`. See Use vocabulary.
Check	A decision about a use, made before anything is generated. Identified by a `chk_` ID.
Generation	A decision about one output a model made, identified by a `gen_` ID. Every generation is made under a check or a session.
Session	A live generation authorized by one check and kept alive by short-lived session tokens, identified by a `ses_` ID. Its sampled outputs are samples (`smp_`).
Stage	Where a decision is made: `check`, `generation` or `session`.
Decision	`allow`, `deny` or `escalate`. See Decision semantics.
Reason	Why a use was denied or escalated: a code, the stage, the talent, the term it rests on as an address, and the sentence in the license’s own words.
Remedy	What would change a `deny`: `license_request`, `license_change`, `disambiguate` or `retry_with_hold`.
Escalation	A decision deferred to a person with authority, identified by an `esc_` ID, with an expiry.
Obligation	Something a platform must do to proceed on an `allow`. See Obligations registry.
Authorization	The proof of a check’s `allow`: an authorization token, a generation count and an expiry.
Request digest	The digest of the request a check decided. See Tokens.
Artifact	The bytes of one output, identified by their SHA-256.
Fingerprint	A perceptual hash and embeddings computed from an output, used to look it up. It matches a file to a registered output, and supports no rule checks.
Watermark	A mark a platform embeds in an output and registers on its generation, identified by an algorithm and an ID.
Assurance	What a license server’s knowledge rests on: `observed` (it received and checked the content) or `attested` (it recorded what another party stated).

Term	Definition
Authorization token	A JWS with `typ` `tlp-auth+jwt`. See Tokens.
Session token	A JWS with `typ` `tlp-session+jwt`.
Receipt	A signed, portable record of one decision, identified by an `rcpt_` ID. See Receipts.
Use status	A receipt’s live answer to what use of the output is permitted now: `permitted`, `ceased`, `withdrawn` or `expired`.
Verification	One lookup of a file, manifest, digest, fingerprint or receipt against a license server, identified by a `vrf_` ID.
Revocation	A narrowing of consent, identified by an `rvk_` ID. Its scope is `license`, `facet`, `mandate` or `talent`.
Acknowledgement	A platform’s attestation that it completed a revocation’s required actions.
Discovery document	The JSON document at `/.well-known/talent-license` that lists a license server’s endpoints, keys and versions.
Talent index	A license server’s signed list of protected talent’s names, for matching on the platform’s side.

Identifiers

TLP-TERM-1. A license server MUST identify each object with a type prefix followed by 26 characters from 0-9 and a-z. The prefixes of the objects TLP 1.0 names are below; objects a license server defines beyond TLP use other prefixes.

Prefix	Object	Prefix	Object
`acct_`	Account (licensee, platform, representative)	`gen_`	Generation
`tal_`	Talent	`ses_`	Session
`fct_`	Facet	`smp_`	Session sample
`lic_`	License	`rcpt_`	Receipt
`lrv_`	License revision	`vrf_`	Verification
`lrq_`	License request	`rvk_`	Revocation
`mnd_`	Mandate	`evt_`	Event
`chk_`	Check	`file_`	File
`esc_`	Escalation	`res_`	Resolution

TLP-TERM-2. A license server MUST NOT reuse an ID, for any object, within its issuer. An ID is unique only within its issuer; two license servers can issue the same ID. TLP-TERM-3. Where an IRI for an object is needed, such as in an ODRL rendering or an RSL document, the object IRI is the issuer, a /, and the ID, such as https://app.reflections.ai/tal_9t0wxyhk5zba2q8v1m3n7p4r6s. An implementation MUST form object IRIs this way. An object IRI identifies the object; it is not required to resolve.

Addresses

TLP-TERM-4. A reason, finding or obligation that rests on a license term MUST name it as license:<license ID>/terms.<key>, where <key> is the key path in the signed terms, such as license:lic_k5zba2q8v1m3n7p4r6s9t0wxyh/terms.channels. One that rests on a talent’s posture MUST name it as talent:<talent ID>.

Decision semantics

How the terms on this page combine into a decision.

Glossary

The same terms in plain language, with their RSL, HCS and C2PA counterparts.

​Parties

​Identity and licenses

​Decisions

​Proof and consent changes

​Identifiers

​Addresses

​Related