How Stelais works.
The mechanism behind the receipt: how your work is fingerprinted, timestamped, and written to a record no one can edit — and how that holds up when you need it.
The engineering underneath.
Three decisions that make Stelais' proof hold up when it matters.
PERMANENCE
Your proof outlasts us.
Most "proof of authorship" systems store your receipts on their own servers. When the company shuts down, gets bought or exits the receipts go with it. Stelais writes every proof to Arweave, a decentralized storage network designed to last for centuries. Your record lives on infrastructure no single party controls. Not us. Not a hosting provider. Not a regulator. If Stelais disappears tomorrow, your receipts don't.
Every proof includes its Arweave transaction ID. So you can verify it yourself.
THE SIGNATURE
The watermark is derived from the file itself.
Most watermarks are added to a file a logo, a metadata tag, a hidden block of data. Platforms strip them on upload. Scrapers strip them automatically. Stelais' watermark is different: it's generated from the image's own pixels, so the signature and the content are the same object. You can't remove the watermark without destroying the image it's protecting. Re-encode it, compress it, crop the corners, screenshot it from another screen the signature regenerates from whatever pixels are left.
This is the "content-bound" in "content-bound watermark." Metadata gets stripped. Pixels don't.
THE FORENSIC READ
We read the copy, not just its similarity score.
When other services find a suspected copy of your work, they report a similarity score. A number. Stelais goes further. We check the copy against the adversarial fingerprint embedded in your original, classify what it's been through (minor compression, significant editing, AI regeneration), and give you a region-level readout of which parts are intact, degraded, or destroyed. You don't get "78% similar." You get a structured verdict you can show a platform, a client, or a lawyer.
This is the difference between "they stole it" and "here's what they did to it."
How Stelais compares
Glaze protects. Verisart proves. Pixsy enforces. Stelais does all three — and does the proof on infrastructure designed to outlast us.
| Capability | Glaze / Nightshade | Verisart | C2PA | Pixsy | Stelais |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unstrippable watermark baked into pixels | |||||
| AI training defense | |||||
| Permanent, decentralized proof | |||||
| Survives metadata stripping | |||||
| Patch-level tamper detection | |||||
| Web scanning + DMCA |
Glaze / Nightshade
- Unstrippable watermark baked into pixels
- AI training defense
- Permanent, decentralized proof
- Survives metadata stripping
- Patch-level tamper detection
- Web scanning + DMCA
Verisart
- Unstrippable watermark baked into pixels
- AI training defense
- Permanent, decentralized proof
- Survives metadata stripping
- Patch-level tamper detection
- Web scanning + DMCA
C2PA
- Unstrippable watermark baked into pixels
- AI training defense
- Permanent, decentralized proof
- Survives metadata stripping
- Patch-level tamper detection
- Web scanning + DMCA
Pixsy
- Unstrippable watermark baked into pixels
- AI training defense
- Permanent, decentralized proof
- Survives metadata stripping
- Patch-level tamper detection
- Web scanning + DMCA
Stelais
- Unstrippable watermark baked into pixels
- AI training defense
- Permanent, decentralized proof
- Survives metadata stripping
- Patch-level tamper detection
- Web scanning + DMCA
Every competitor solves one row. Stelais is the only product built across all of them.
How it works
From creation to permanent recognition in seconds
Upload
Drop your content—any format, any size. We process it locally and never store your files.
Stele
We generate a unique cryptographic fingerprint and embed an invisible watermark that survives compression.
Anchor
Your proof is permanently recorded. Immutable. Verifiable. Forever.
Enforce
We continuously scan the web for copies of your work. When we find one, your proof record becomes the evidence packet for a DMCA takedown — backed by your timestamped, cryptographic origin record.
What we're still building.
In active research
AI training defense. Today's watermark writes your signature into the pixels. It survives everything platforms and thieves typically do to an image. We're extending it to also disrupt how AI models learn from your work, not just how they identify it.
Your fingerprint is generated today. When the next layer ships, everything you've already registered is covered.
Building the missing layer of the modern internet.
The internet has no built-in concept of "I made this first." AI scrapes everything. Imitation is faster than ever. Big brands steal from small creators and face no consequences.
Stelais changes that.
We're building true, permanent provenance for original creators—where every post, project, and idea carries its origin with it.
A future where authorship is respected by default.
See it work with your own file.
Drop a file and watch Stelais build its proof — no account needed to see it work.
Create your first proof — free