Straps01 case study: protecting a watch strap store from launch

An online store is worth more than the products it sells. At Straps01, a watch strap store organised by lug width, most of the work is invisible at first glance: a catalogue of measurements, a visual identity built from scratch and a custom-built platform. In the first weeks after launch, the team had these creations timestamped and certified with Copyright01. Here is why, and how, with the certificates to prove it.

Straps01 at a glance: finding the right strap for your watch

A new strap is the easiest way to give a watch a different character, as long as you know the right width. Straps01 starts from there: you begin with your watch, and the site shows the straps that fit.

• A catalogue of measured watches: 188 brands and more than 26,700 watches, each linked to its lug width
• Search in both directions: from a watch to compatible straps, and from a strap to the watches it fits
• A bilingual site, in English and French, for an international audience
• A distinctive identity: "Dress your watch", a custom wordmark, illustrations and an ink, paper and raspberry palette

What makes a store like Straps01 valuable

Three assets set Straps01 apart from a simple strap reseller, and all three are published online, which means they can be copied.

1. The data: every watch width was recorded, checked and linked to a reference. It is the core of the service.
2. The visual identity: logo, illustrations, layout and site copy.
3. The code: the theme and modules that power the search by lug width.

Every width in our catalogue has been checked and linked to a specific reference. That work is what makes the site valuable, and it is also what gets copied most easily. We wanted to be able to show, at any time, what we had published and when.

The Straps01 legal team

A data catalogue is not protected like a text or an image. In the European Union, the maker of a database enjoys a specific right when obtaining, verifying or presenting its contents required a substantial investment (Directive 96/9/EC). Either way, the question in a dispute stays the same: proving what existed, and since when. That is exactly what a proof of prior creation provides.

Two deposits, two certificates

Straps01 deposited the public website and the platform code separately. Each deposit has its own certificate that anyone can check:

Both deposits were certified on 17 September 2026, then anchored on the Polygon blockchain the same day.

The website: a full archive, not just a screenshot

For a website deposit, Copyright01 does more than take a picture of the page. The Straps01 proof package holds 59 files, including the homepage archive, the 50 images it contains and desktop and mobile screenshots. The whole package is identified by a SHA-256 fingerprint, then anchored on the blockchain.

The homepage illustrations, which explain how the site works in three steps, are among the archived images. If they were reused elsewhere, their presence on straps01.com at a certain date would be established.

Our identity was designed for a single purpose: dressing a watch. The logo, the colours, the illustrations were all created for Straps01. We wanted them dated from launch, before the store became known.

The Straps01 legal team

The source code: 317 commits under a single fingerprint

The platform runs on Magento with a theme built for Straps01 and in-house modules for the search by lug width. The source code was deposited straight from GitHub: 386 files in a 219.6 MB archive, encrypted and stored by Copyright01.

• The SHA-256 fingerprint identifies the archive down to the bit: changing a single file would produce a different fingerprint.
• Blockchain timestamping writes that fingerprint to a public ledger that nobody, not even Copyright01, can rewrite.
• A lightweight proof package: for an archive this size, the downloadable package contains the fingerprints and repository metadata, while the full archive stays encrypted in storage.

A Git history lives with a hosting provider and can be rewritten. With the fingerprint and the anchoring, we have a date anyone can verify, and a fingerprint that establishes exactly which code existed on that date.

The Straps01 legal team

A visible notice, in English and French

Straps01 displays the protection in the copyright line of every page: "Content protected by Copyright01" on the English site, "Contenus protégés par Copyright01" on the French one. The link leads to the website certificate, in the visitor's language.

Our visitors come from several countries. A certificate that reads in English as well as in French is the same proof for all of them, and a clear signal for anyone tempted to copy.

The Straps01 legal team

For an international store, the Berne Convention matters: it guarantees copyright protection in 181 countries, and a timestamped certificate is useful evidence wherever a copy appears.

Key takeaways for an online store

1. Protect from day one: a proof of prior creation only helps if it predates the copy, and a new store is the easiest to imitate.
2. Think beyond images: data, copy, visual identity and code each deserve their own deposit.
3. Deposit the site and the code separately: one proves what the public sees, the other what makes it work.
4. Show the protection: a visible notice and a verifiable certificate deter copying before any dispute.

Launching a store or a website? You can make your first deposit in a few minutes, for free.