How we label facts
Every factual field on this site carries a status. The status says how the fact was established — not how important it is, and not whether we like it. This page defines each label. The definitions are stable: changes are versioned and logged like any other record.
Anyone may use this vocabulary. If it makes your reporting, research or policy work more precise, take it — a link back to this page is appreciated and lets your readers check the definitions.
Vocabulary version 1.0 · adopted 17 Jul 2026 · changes logged
Assertion status
- VERIFIED
- Confirmed against the cited source on the stated date. A verified fact names its source and its checking date. Verification expires: see freshness below.
- PARTY CLAIM
- Stated by an interested party. Not independently confirmed. A company's funding amount announced by the company is a party claim — even when every headline repeats it. A press release proves a claim was made. It does not prove the claim.
- REPORTED
- Reported by a secondary source. The primary document has not been located. Reporting quality varies; the label does not distinguish good journalism from bad — it marks the absence of a primary document.
- DISPUTED
- Sources materially disagree. Both values are shown, each with its source; neither is canonical. We do not pick silently.
- SUPERSEDED
- A newer verified value exists. The old value is kept for history. Records change; they do not get rewritten.
- unknown
- Not established from available sources. Absence of data is information. An unknown price means we looked and could not establish it — not that we didn't look.
- not publicly disclosed
- The parties have not made this public. We don't guess.
Freshness
LAST CHECKED {n}D AGO — When a record was last re-verified against its sources. Past 14 days the stamp degrades to a warning state by itself. A stale record tells you it is stale; that is the point.
Legal status (rights & policy records)
Case status uses procedural vocabulary only:
activedismissed with prejudicedismissed without prejudicesettled (terms not public)decided
Never “won”, “lost”, or “resolved the dispute” — those are outcomes for parties, and parties differ. Per-party status is stated per party: Warner plaintiffs dismissed with prejudice · UMG, Capitol, Sony — active. A cert denial is stated as: Supreme Court declined to review (cert denied {date}). The lower-court ruling stands. — the Supreme Court did not rule.
Bills:
introducedreported by committeeon calendarpassed Housepassed Senateenacted
A bill is never “law” until enacted.
Structured information, not legal advice.
Category maturity (Index assessments)
Where the Index assesses a category, it uses a fixed scale:
emptyemergingfragmentedunderdevelopedno clear category leaderinsufficiently researched
“First-ever” and “no one has ever done this” do not appear without primary evidence.
What the labels are not
Confidence measures evidence quality. Relevance measures connection to AI music. Popularity measures attention. We never merge them into one score — and none of them is a recommendation.
Using this vocabulary
- Journalists: label a company's own numbers PARTY CLAIM and your readers know exactly what you know. Cite as: assertion status per aimusic.events vocabulary.
- Researchers and lawyers: the legal-status vocabulary maps to procedural reality; per-party status prevents the most common aggregation error (“the labels settled”).
- Builders: the label set ships as a constants module in our codebase; if you want it as JSON for your own product, take it from this page's source or ask.
Corrections to definitions: Report a correction →. Changes to this page are public: Sources & changes.