The Provenance Protocol: Chain of Intellectual Custody from First Note to Final Publication
The Provenance Protocol: Chain of Intellectual Custody from First Note to Final Publication DOI: Pending assignment John Swygert August 1, 2026 Abstract Modern authorship is increasingly collaborative, tool-assisted, distributed, and difficult to reconstruct after publication. A book may involve an originating author, artificial intelligence systems, editors, ghostwriters, researchers, translators, designers, software, and publishers. Existing disclosure practices rarely preserve the full developmental history of the work. This paper proposes the Provenance Protocol, a structured chain of intellectual custody beginning before drafting and continuing through publication. The protocol does not prescribe one acceptable route to authorship. It permits solo, collaborative, ghostwritten, AI-assisted, edited, translated, and mixed workflows. Its purpose is to make the chosen route explicit, updateable, verifiable, and accountable. The protocol begins with an Authorship Process Declaration des...