The Imperative For Digital Public Infrastructure for Authorship

This working paper advances a conceptual framework for Digital Public Infrastructure for Authorship (DPIA). It argues that authorship and cultural intellectual property governance should be treated as a programmable infrastructure layer rather than solely as a private licensing function. Existing IP systems were designed for territorial, analog-era enforcement and are structurally misaligned with the cross-border, data-intensive realities of artificial intelligence and digital distribution. The paper proposes a modular governance model that encodes legal authority, consent conditions, treaty compliance, and public domain lifecycle rules into interoperable, machine-readable systems. By aligning intellectual property governance with digital public infrastructure principles and sovereign data governance frameworks, the model reframes cultural IP as a domain requiring embedded compliance rather than reactive litigation. This publication is conceptual and normative in nature and does not constitute product documentation or commercial solicitation. It is intended to contribute to scholarship and policy discussions at the intersection of intellectual property law, AI governance, and digital public infrastructure design.