Method

1. Intake and authority verification

The first question is not whether a match exists, but whether the requester has a credible basis to act. Atlantic records identity, contact information, relationship to the work, source records and any assignment, employment, agency or licence documents.

Incomplete authority does not necessarily mean the request is false; it means the matter cannot progress to consequential action until the gap is resolved.

• Source or original file
• Publication or contributor history
• Contracts, assignments or mandates where relevant
• Declaration of accuracy and authority

2. Preservation and technical capture

Publicly accessible pages may change, disappear or display different content by location and time. Atlantic records the URL, visible context, date, domain, screenshot and available technical metadata. Hashes and storage records help detect later alteration, but they do not by themselves prove authorship or legal ownership.

Atlantic’s method does not authorize intrusion, password bypass, credential misuse or access to non-public systems.

3. Rights, licence and context review

The platform compares the observed use with the requester’s records and checks for indicators of licensing, syndication, agency distribution, editorial use, platform terms, assignments, public-domain status or other relevant context.

Potential statutory exceptions and defences—such as fair use in the United States—require a fact-specific legal analysis and cannot be resolved by a similarity percentage.

4. Human classification and next-step control

A trained reviewer classifies the matter as authorized, likely authorized, unresolved, insufficiently documented, potentially unauthorized or unsuitable for further action. The classification records reasons and supporting material.

External correspondence, formal notices, agreements, payments, payouts and deletion of evidence require the permissions and confirmations defined by the platform.

5. Quality assurance and correction

Material changes are logged. If new evidence contradicts an earlier assumption, the record can be corrected without erasing the historical decision. This protects both the requester and the recipient from silent rewriting.

The system favors reversible steps—review, clarification, quarantine and archiving—before irreversible action.