Rights verification for physical merchandise
Check before it ships. Not after.
One API call (at upload, at order intake, or in the print queue) answers two questions: does this design match registered IP, and is this submitter authorized to produce it? Infringing products don't get taken down. They never get made.
Free for printers, permanently. Built with the people who actually print.
The file tells you nothing about the rights.
A famous band's logo arrives at a print queue via API. It's either fully licensed merch from an official account, or a counterfeit. Identical pixels, opposite legal outcomes, and the deciding fact belongs to someone else. Infringement is strict liability: “we just printed what was sent” has never been a defense, and judgments against printers run into the millions.
The missing piece was never detection. It's authorization: did the rights holder approve this submission? That answer lives in one place, and until now, nothing could ask it.
CheckMerch is how the question gets asked.
Three parties, one registry.
The same registry answers a different question for each side. Pick yours.
You're liable for every file you print. You can finally see what you're printing.
Platforms send the orders and keep the merchant data. You carry the IP risk blind.
One API call at order intake answers before the job reaches your queue: no match, authorized, or matches known third-party IP (treat as high risk). Verdicts are advisory; what to do next stays your call. Every check is logged: your documented good faith, order by order.
Integration is an afternoon: an API key, then the CLI or an API call in front of your queue. Run your whole line through the system and verification is free, permanently: the registry earns from rights holders, not from printers.
- Every order file checked before it reaches the queue: no match, authorized, or high-risk, in milliseconds
- Every check logged: a documented good-faith record, order by order
- Matching built for print files: catches resized, re-encoded, mirrored, recolored, and single-ink copies
- A listing in the verified-provider directory, where rights holders route licensed work
- Live in an afternoon: API key, then CLI, webhook, or API. Free, permanently
Stop paying to chase what you could prevent.
Takedowns are a subscription to a problem: millions of listings, removed and relisted, while the counterfeit ships anyway. You're policing the internet. The products come from somewhere much smaller.
Most counterfeits are printed by real manufacturers, and now they can check your catalog before anything is made. Register once, and verified printers match every incoming production file against your works. An infringing design stops being a product that gets taken down. It becomes a product that never exists.
Registration is one batch upload, and your originals never have to leave your systems. Run our open-source fingerprinting tool inside your own infrastructure; the registry receives only irreversible fingerprints, never the artwork.
Your catalog, behind every print queue.
- Your catalog checked at the print queue, before anything is manufactured
- Every match on your work, licensed or not, in one dashboard
- Grants scoped by work, use, territory, and term, revocable in real time
- Three lines in your license template turn every licensee's printer into a checkpoint
- Your originals never leave your systems: register with fingerprints only
The era of not knowing is ending.
For years, platforms couldn't check what merchants uploaded; there was nothing to check against. Safe harbor absorbed what shipped. That era is closing: courts are trimming safe harbor for physical goods, and “we had no way to know” is becoming “we chose not to look.”
Now there's a way to know. CheckMerch adds verification at upload, at scale, in one integration: every design checked against registered catalogs before it becomes a product.
And it comes with a gift for your artists and merchants: every design is protected from the moment it's uploaded: registered, fingerprinted, and watched across the verified network. Each account holder gets a rights account, pre-filled with their catalog, claimable whenever they want control, theirs to keep. A feature for your platform to give, not a lock-in.
Be the platform that checked first.
- Every upload verified against registered catalogs before it becomes a product
- One integration, upload-scale throughput, SLAs and dedicated support
- Every artist and merchant gets a rights account: pre-filled, claimable anytime, theirs to keep
- The platform can issue licenses on artists' behalf where your agreements allow it
- Artists and merchants stay free; you pay only for the tooling
Every image gets one of four answers.
Verdicts are advisory: the registry reports matches and authorization state; the production decision stays with the verifier. What changes is that the decision is informed and on the record: every check is logged, and a match ignored is a match ignored knowingly.
no_match
Nothing registered matches the uploaded file.
match_authorized
The image matches registered work and the submitter carries a valid, current grant covering it.
match_unauthorized
Registered work, no authorization. The holder's licensing contact is attached, so a rejection can become a licensed order.
match_reference
Matches widely recognized third-party IP whose holder hasn't joined. No authorization data available; treat as high risk.
Legitimacy customers can check.
Every verified licensed product can carry a public badge link. It resolves to the rights holder, the licensee, and the live license status. Because status is checked against the grant ledger in real time, a counterfeit can't mint one.
Licensees use it as anti-counterfeit marketing on products, packaging, and listings.
Licensed product
- Work
- Haunted Ramen
- Rights holder
- Aster & Vane Studio
- Licensee
- Meridian Merch Co.
- License
- Directly by Aster & Vane Studio
- Valid
- Aug 2026 – Aug 2027
- Badge
- bdg_01k2dk9mvfr8
Status is live: revoking the license invalidates this badge immediately.
Built for agentic workflows.
Commerce is becoming agent-driven: agents source designs, create listings, route print orders, manage licenses. CheckMerch ships MCP tools (check_image, check_authorization, lookup_rights_holder) so verification and licensing plug into agentic workflows natively. Whatever runs the workflow, the rights check runs first.
Counterfeits are printed by real companies that couldn't check.
Now they can. Verification is free for printers that run their whole line through it.