Chapter 14 - The metadata
The strongest evidence was boring.
File metadata.
Daniel’s original project files existed in two places.
My external drive.
A backup service Daniel paid for.
Timestamps predated Victor’s claimed composition sessions.
But timestamps can be manipulated.
So the forensic team went deeper.
Cloud backup logs.
Email attachments.
Incremental autosave versions.
Audio bounce files sent to Daniel’s cellist friend, Marcus Lee.
A PDF score attached to an email Daniel sent me eleven months before diagnosis:
Lantern movement 2 finally behaves.
The attached PDF contained the exact melodic material later appearing in Ashes Above the River.
Date:
Fourteen months before Victor’s team claimed the theme emerged during a Blackwood studio session.
Then came a voice memo.
Daniel speaking.
“Victor wants to hear Lantern Tuesday. Don’t let me sell it too cheap.”
My laugh in the background.
No authorship argument from Victor.
No collaboration language.
A private artist talking about showing his own work to a potential patron.
That was strong.
Still, legal ownership depended on contracts too.
Evidence is rarely one magical file.
May you like
It accumulates.
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