# songseal-correction-reasons-v1

**Status:** `PUBLISHED` · **Frozen:** 2026-08-18

> ## THIS DOCUMENT IS IMMUTABLE
>
> Sealed records commit to the string `songseal-correction-reasons-v1` inside a
> chained correction digest. A record says *"my reason is drawn from this
> vocabulary"* and can say nothing more — so if this document changes, every
> record that cited it now means something it did not mean when it was written,
> and no reader can tell.
>
> **Corrections are a NEW VERSION, never an edit.** `…-v2` is a different string
> and old records go on pointing at this one. A checksum of this file is recorded
> in `CHECKSUMS.json` beside it and enforced by the build gate, so an edit fails
> loudly rather than silently rewriting the past.

---

## 1. Why this vocabulary is closed, and why it is a ledger

A correction says that something on a permanent public record changed. The
change almost always involves **somebody other than the account holder** — a
co-writer's split, a credit, a name. Before this vocabulary existed, the reason
was free prose, typed by one party, about another, permanently.

The difference is not hypothetical. These say the same thing about the same
event:

```text
TEMPLATED   Split for Sam Ellis changed from 40% to 50%.
            Reason: requested by the person affected.

PROSE       "Sam and I don't agree, but this is what I'm doing to make him
             happy."
```

The second is permanent, public, unanswerable by Sam, and written by the only
party with a keyboard. **The vocabulary is closed so that a correction states
WHAT CHANGED and WHY, and cannot characterise anybody.**

⚠ **But a closed vocabulary is wrong eventually.** This project has shipped two
closed lists that had to open — a fingerprint projection that claimed to be open
and was not, and an identifier set that admitted only ISRC and produced a false
forgery. So this one is designed to be **APPENDED TO BY GOVERNANCE**, not
frozen by accident:

```text
TODAY          the operator publishes this vocabulary.
LATER          a foundation or board reviews proposed additions and publishes
               the next version. The mechanism does not change; who holds it
               does.
NEVER          an edit to a published version. A new reason is `…-v2`, and
               every record sealed under v1 still resolves against v1, forever.
```

A reason that is not on the list is a **loud refusal at intake** — the artist is
present, sees the list, and picks another or asks for one to be added. That is
survivable in a way a silent corruption is not, and it is the difference between
this closed list and the two that went wrong.

## 2. The reasons

```text
requested_by_subject    the person the change is about asked for it
agreed_by_parties       everyone named in the change agreed to it
artist_error            the account holder recorded it wrongly and is fixing it
document_produced       a document was produced that settles it (a split sheet,
                        a contract, a registration)
legal_direction         counsel or a court directed the change
administrative          non-substantive — a spelling, a format, a duplicate
```

Each is a statement about **how the change came about**, never about a person's
conduct, position, or good faith. There is deliberately no reason meaning
*"they are wrong"* or *"under protest"*: a record that can carry one party's
view of another is the thing this vocabulary exists to prevent.

## 3. What a correction carries

```json
{
  "kind": "correction",
  "change": { "field": "split", "subject": "Sam Ellis", "from": "40", "to": "50" },
  "reason": "requested_by_subject",
  "reasonScheme": "songseal-correction-reasons-v1",
  "appended": "2026-09-02"
}
```

`field` is drawn from a closed set — `split`, `credit`, `title`, `date`,
`identifier`, `disclosure`, `label` — and `subject`, when present, is a name
already on the record. **There is no free-text field.** The sentence a reader
sees is assembled from these by the record generator; it is a rendering of the
committed values, never a second source for them.

## 4. What a correction is not

It is not an adjudication. Song Seal proves that the account holder stated this,
on this date, in this form. It does not prove the statement is correct, and it
does not settle a disagreement. The receipt says so in its own words: *not a
copyright office, not a registration authority, and not a court.*

Where a named party disagrees and the account holder will not amend, this
vocabulary has nothing to offer, and that is deliberate rather than unfinished.
Any mechanism for a second party to write to a record is a separate design, a
separate entry kind, and a separate published scheme.