Serviceberry
In the age of ai and predatory companies, we provide artists with community based authentication
WHAT IT IS:
In our changing world, we believe that community is where we can find real change. Serviceberry provides a platform where community (your literal neighbours) are witnesses to the creation of art works.
A maker signs their work
A creator uploads a piece — a track, a painting, a textile, or a photograph. It’s fingerprinted, watermarked, and signed with their own key in our community blockchain. No crypto wallet. No tokens to buy.
The community sees it happen
A tiny radio packet broadcasts over local LoRaWAN. Nearby community gateways physically receive it and timestamp it — an independent witness that cannot be altered after the fact. If no radio is available, a backup internet connected confirmation happens too.
The record is kept together
The witnessed record is written to a community-run Hyperledger Fabric network, validated by community members across the community. No outside owner. No company in the middle.
Artwork → witness → chain record → certificate
A full lifecycle system where creative work is registered, witnessed by a community network, validated through a smart contract, and returned as a verifiable certificate.
Saskatoon Berry
The project takes its name from the serviceberry/saskatoon/síyaʔ, a wonderful tree that shares its fruit selflessly with the world — and from Robin Wall Kimmerer’s reflection on it as a model for a gift economy. Síyaʔ gives freely; As many other fruit trees, they are sharing their gifts with others, and in reciprocity, they benefit as well. We believe that art is very much like the fruit of a tree, created selflessly for everyone to enjoy.
“It seems apt that we call these “grassroots” movements, emulating the gift economies of plants” — Robin Wall Kimmerer, The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World
Serviceberry is a project of Deep Mountain Sound. Serviceberry is being built with the same philosophy that art should be human-focused, fairly held, and released with intention. Once deployed, Serviceberry will always be open source
Deep Mountain Sound.
Deep Mountain Sound is an independent label rooted in Nelson, BC, building an alternative to a music industry that pays artists in fractions of pennies and floods the world with machine-made sound. Serviceberry is the infrastructure side of that conviction.
We release on seasonal cycles rather than algorithm schedules, treating every release as an event instead of content churn. Our principles are simple and non-negotiable: every sound is human-made, never AI-generated; artists keep full ownership of their masters and publishing; and we only use platforms and tools that compensate creators fairly.
Serviceberry carries that same ethos into code — a community witnessing network that lets a maker prove a real person, in a real place, created their work. It’s the gift economy made technical: witness given freely, a record held in common, value measured in the strength of the community rather than what any one party can extract.
Serviceberry 