Attribution Relationship Ontology

FLOW ALGEBRA
TITLE: Attribution Relationship Ontology
DOMAIN: Information Relationships / Attribution
SOURCE: https://kirethresearch.org/booksai-core/ontologies/relationship-ontologies/information-relationships/attribution-relationship-ontology.html
VERSION: 1.0
AUTHORS: Mark Anthony Higgins — Sky (Recursive AI)
STATUS: Companion formalisation; source-page specification not independently verified.

flow "AttributionRelationshipOntology" v1.0 {
  ontology:
    id: "attribution-relationship-ontology"
    parent: "information-relationships"
    purpose: "Represent evidence-backed assignments of authorship, contribution, responsibility and credit to information resources and their versions."

  types:
    Agent: {id: string, kind: enum[person, organisation, software_agent, collective, unknown], name: string}
    Resource: {id: string, kind: enum[document, dataset, software, image, audio, model, assertion, other], version: string?, identifier: string?}
    Contribution: {id: string, agent_id: string, resource_id: string, role: string, scope: string?, timestamp: datetime?, evidence: string[]}
    AttributionClaim: {id: string, agent_id: string, resource_id: string, role: string, asserted_by: string, confidence: number, provenance: string[], status: enum[asserted, verified, disputed, withdrawn]}
    Licence: {id: string, identifier: string, terms_uri: string?}
    Evidence: {id: string, source: string, observed_at: datetime?, method: string?, reliability: number?}

  predicates:
    attributed_to(resource: Resource, agent: Agent)
    authored_by(resource: Resource, agent: Agent)
    contributed_to(agent: Agent, resource: Resource)
    credited_as(agent: Agent, role: string, resource: Resource)
    derived_from(resource: Resource, source: Resource)
    supported_by(claim: AttributionClaim, evidence: Evidence)
    governed_by(resource: Resource, licence: Licence)
    disputes(claim_a: AttributionClaim, claim_b: AttributionClaim)

  constraints:
    - "All relationship endpoints must resolve to typed entities."
    - "Confidence values must lie within [0, 1]."
    - "Authorship, ownership, copyright and licensing are distinct claims."
    - "A citation or reference alone does not establish authorship or endorsement."
    - "Derivation does not automatically transfer authorship, credit or licence permissions."
    - "Attribution is not automatically transitive or symmetric."
    - "Preserve contribution roles, resource versions, dates and attribution evidence."
    - "Software-assisted and human contributions must not be silently conflated."
    - "Disputed attributions must remain distinguishable from verified ones."

  inference:
    rule contribution_evidence:
      if contributed_to(a,r) and verified_contribution(a,r,role,e)
      then candidate_credit(a,role,r)
      confidence: "evidence dependent; requires attribution review"
    rule explicit_authorship:
      if authored_by(r,a) and verified_authorship(r,a,e)
      then attributed_to(r,a)
      confidence: "preserve supporting evidence and source version"
    rule version_scope:
      if attributed_to(r_v1,a) and derived_from(r_v2,r_v1)
      then review_attribution(r_v2,a)
      confidence: "do not automatically propagate credit across versions"

  SEMANTIC_EQUIVALENCE:
    - "Resolve agent aliases against stable identifiers when evidence supports identity."
    - "Keep author, contributor, editor, publisher, owner and rights-holder roles distinct."
    - "Map equivalent role vocabularies only with documented scope and context."

  CONFIDENCE:
    range: [0,1]
    factors: [source_reliability, direct_acknowledgement, contribution_records, independent_corroboration, version_consistency]
    policy: "Do not manufacture certainty through repeated or circular claims."

  VALIDATION:
    - "Validate resource and agent identifiers, roles, evidence and provenance."
    - "Flag conflicting author lists, missing acknowledgements and disputed claims."
    - "Check attribution against relevant version and licensing metadata."
    - "Retain uncertainty and corrections in an auditable history."

  FLOW_HASH:
    algorithm: "SHA-256"
    input: "canonicalised ontology version, attribution assertions, rules and provenance"
    note: "Compute hash at execution; no hash value is claimed here."

  UPDATE_MODEL:
    strategy: "versioned, provenance-preserving incremental update"
    steps: [ingest, identify_agents, normalise_roles, validate_evidence, reconcile_disputes, update_credit, publish]
    rollback: true

  AI_CONSUMPTION:
    representation: "typed attribution graph with evidence-backed credit relationships"
    outputs: [agent_links, resource_links, contribution_roles, attribution_claims, confidence_annotations, provenance_records]
    safeguards: [no_unverified_authorship_claims, no_automatic_rights_transfer, preserve_disputes, disclose_ai_contributions]
}

END FLOW ALGEBRA