Media AI agent · Rights
Rights & Licensing Lookup AI Agent
Find the agreements and amendments that bear on a rights question, extract the terms as written and line them up against the request — with the answer left to a clearances manager or counsel.
- Typical delivery
- 4–6 weeks
- Deployment
- Your stack
- Who answers
- Never the agent
- After launch
- Agent Care
What this agent does
Assembles the paperwork behind a rights question
In
- 01
Take the question as asked — the title, the clip, the territory, the media and the date it is wanted for.
- 02
Pull the agreements, amendments, side letters and licences filed against that title, and name what was not found.
Reason
- 03
Quote term, territory, media, language, exclusivity, holdbacks and options as the document words them.
- 04
Read the amendment chain in date order and mark where a later document narrows or replaces an earlier clause.
- 05
Line music cues, archive footage and underlying works up separately from the programme licence itself.
Decide
- 06
Mark where two documents disagree, where a term is silent, and where a document the file refers to is missing.
- 07
Send anything unresolved, expiring or unsupported to a named clearances manager rather than settling it.
Out
- 08
Return a document pack — clauses as written, dates, cites and gaps — with nothing recorded as cleared.
- 09
Retain the search, the documents read, the extraction, the reviewer's correction and the answer they gave.
Product statement
The agent finds documents and quotes them. It does not clear rights, grant or interpret a licence, or decide that anything may be used.
Example workflow
One rights question, end to end
- 1Question receivedA clip request, a re-version, a new territory or platform, or a delivery and clearance list
- 2Documents assembledAgreements, amendments, side letters, licences and cue sheets filed against the title, with anything referred to but not held named as not found
- 3Terms extractedTerm, territory, media, language, exclusivity, holdbacks and options, quoted as written with the document, page and date they sit on
- 4Chain read in orderWhere a later amendment or side letter narrows an earlier clause, where two documents disagree, and where the contract is simply silent
No human action required
Stages 1 to 4 run without a person in the loop — the search, the extraction and the chain reading finish before a clearances manager is asked to read anything.
Reaches the clearances manager ready to read.
Goes back named as unresolved, not answered.
Clearances manager and counsel
The rights answer is theirs. The pack is evidence for that decision and is not a clearance, an opinion or a permission.
Accept · Correct · Escalate to counsel
Accepted — handed back
- 6Pack handed overAttached to the title's rights record only where the clearances manager accepted it, and never as a clearance
- 7Outcome reviewedWhat counsel corrected, which documents were missed, and where the extraction disagreed with the file as read by a person
Corrections
Every clause a reviewer re-reads is counted.
What should not run autonomously
Human approval stays in control
Outside the boundary — human approval required
8 items
- Answering whether a use is permitted.
- Granting, denying or interpreting a licence.
- Deciding fair use or fair dealing.
- Marking a title, clip or cue as cleared.
Automation boundary
Agent acts unaided
- ✓Find the agreements and amendments filed against a title.
- ✓Quote term, territory, media and exclusivity as written.
- ✓Order the amendment chain and mark what a later document changes.
- ✓Name the conflicts, the silences and the documents not held.
Write actions run only inside the approval boundaries agreed during implementation. The rights answer is not one of them.
- Reading a silent contract as permission.
- Signing a delivery or chain-of-title certificate.
- Closing a chain-of-title gap by inference.
- Amending a licence window or entitlement record.
Example output
One rights question, annotated
Everything the agent returns is attached to the document it was taken from.
Lookup output · single rights question
Illustrative example- Question
- Clip re-use, compilation
- Title
- Archive series, series 2
- Documents
- 9 of 11 read
- Status
- Unresolved — two gaps
- Confidence
- 86%
- Rights answer
- Not given by the agent
As received
The question as the requester asked it, the title it names, and which of the filed documents were read against it.
Evidence used
- Amendment 2, cl. 4.1
- Side letter, undated
- Cue sheet, three cues
Why it is unresolved
A side letter narrows the territory the main agreement grants. The agent picks neither.
What the score decides
It decides how closely the extraction should be re-read, not whether the clip may be used.
Action
AcceptCorrectEscalate to counselValue
Where AI adds value
The same four claims, placed at the point in the workflow where each one applies.
Where the value lands
Value 01 – 04
Every rights question
From production, distribution, marketing or delivery
Read the chain in date order
Each clause arrives with the document it came from, its date, and the later amendment or side letter that narrows it.
Shorten the search, not the review
Agreements, amendments and cue sheets are gathered, ordered and quoted first, so a clearances manager reads a file instead of hunting for one.
Surface the gap while there is time
A missing master licence, an undated side letter or a term the contract never addresses is named now, rather than found by a distributor at delivery.
Build an evidence trail
Retain the question, the documents read and not held, the clauses quoted, the conflicts marked, the reviewer's correction and the answer given — on both paths.
Integrations
Typical integrations
Five system groups connect to the same agent. Which of them are in scope is decided in discovery.
Rights & royalties
- FilmTrack
- Rightsline
- Contract abstracts
- deal memos
Contract stores
- Document management
- e-signature archives
- Amendments
- side letters
Music & cue data
- Cue sheets
- music-supervision logs
- ISWC/ISRC references
- PRO submissions
Agent
Rights & licensing lookup
- Finds the documents
- Quotes the terms
- Routes to clearances
Catalogue & delivery
- MAM/CMS title records
- EIDR identifiers
- Avails and windowing feeds
Observability & evaluation
- OpenTelemetry
- Langfuse
- Supported monitoring/evaluation sources
Integration availability depends on the client's existing systems and API access.
Agent controls
Six layers between the model and the rights file
Each control wraps the one inside it. A lookup clears every layer before it reaches a clearances manager, and the rights answer itself sits outside all six.
L6 · Outermost — last line of defence
Inward → L1 · closest to the model
- L1 – L2
- Tie each clause to a document and a date
- L3
- Decides who answers the rights question
- L4 – L5
- Keep disagreement visible and the trail intact
- L6
- Pulls automation back when signals degrade
How Nestack evaluates it
Evaluate what was found, what was quoted and what was missed.
Coverage runs the whole depth of the workflow, and every layer is cut by slice.
Surface — the document pack a clearances manager opens
- E1Final-output evaluationWas each clause quoted accurately and cited to the right document?
- E2Step-level evaluationDid it read the amendment chain in date order and apply the later document?
- E3Tool evaluationDid it search the right title, version and contract store?
- E4Gap recallWere missing documents and silent terms named rather than filled in?
- E5Slice evaluationHow does extraction change across contract types, eras and languages?
- E6Business outcomeHow much of the pack did a clearances manager have to correct?
Floor — the corrections the pack needed before it was used
Failure modes
Where each failure originates in the agent
Seven failure modes plotted against the five stages of the agent lifecycle.
Agent lifecycle
Direction of processing →
01 · Document search
2 modes
- RL-01
Superseding amendment missed
The main clause is quoted after a side letter narrowed it.
- RL-02
Chain-of-title gap not named
A missing assignment passes as a complete chain.
Stage finds
Agreements, amendments, side letters and licences
02 · Extraction
2 modes
- RL-03
Schedule carve-out dropped
A territory or media exception is left out.
- RL-04
Music cue read off the title
Cue licences are assumed from the programme's own.
Stage quotes
Term, territory, media, exclusivity and holdbacks
03 · Chain reading
1 mode
- RL-05
Silence read as permission
A term the contract never addresses reads as allowed.
Stage orders
The amendment chain, the conflicts and the silences
04 · Handover / write
1 mode
- RL-06
Conflict shown as one reading
Two documents disagree; only one reaches the pack.
Stage returns
The pack read before a rights answer is given
05 · Change / Version
1 mode
- RL-07
Silent extraction regression
A template change drops a clause type unnoticed.
Stage tracks
Model, prompt, extraction-rule and template changes
- Sev-1 · a wrong term reaches the pack
- Sev-2 · a gap or conflict is not shown
- Sev-3 · lookups degrade, search is manual
Affected slices
Old paper and rewritten deals carry the corrections
Old scanned agreements, deals rewritten by side letter and cue-level music rights carry most of what a clearances manager sends back; a whole-library figure averages them away. Nestack reports performance by slice, not only in total.
Slice performance — reported separately, not only in aggregate
Illustrative example| Slice | Failure rate | Lift | Lift vs. threshold | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pre-2000 scanned agreements | 5.5% | 3.5× | Review | |
| Amended and side-lettered deals | 4.7% | 3.0× | Review | |
| Music cue clearances | 2.8% | 1.8× | Watch | |
| Recent standard-form licences | 1.1% | 0.7× | Normal |
Bar: reviewer-correction rate lift vs. standard-form licences · scale 0–4.0× · tick marks the 2.0× threshold
2 of 4 slices over threshold
Evidence-linked improvement
The file changes after the answer is given
Amendments are signed, options lapse and documents surface late. A pack assembled last quarter can be quoting a clause that has since been replaced.
Improvement cycle · five stages
Switchback — the path turns at Improve and returns at Learn
- 01
Detect
Reviewer corrections, missed documents or late-surfacing amendments cluster in one contract cohort.
- 02
Diagnose
Traced to the search scope, the extraction, the chain ordering, a defined term or a document never filed.
- 03
Improve
The search scope, extraction rule or pack template is changed, re-read by the clearances manager and version-linked.
- 04
Verify
Re-run against held-out questions, including the ones counsel had to correct.
- 05
Learn
The corrected pack is kept as a worked example, and the clause type that was missed is added to what a lookup must quote.
Learn → Detect
The return edge. Every cycle re-reads the file as it stands now — an amendment signed since the last pack changes what the documents say.
Typical build scope
Twelve workstreams across six weeks
The build scope read against the delivery timeline. Week structure follows the six-week plan — discovery, document intake, extraction and chain reading, evaluation, rights-system integration, then production validation and handover.
Workstream
Week 1Week 2Week 3Week 4Week 5Week 6
- 01Workflow discovery and automation-boundary definition.Week 1
- 02Contract store and document-source review.Week 1, Week 2
- 03Title, version and identifier mapping.Week 1, Week 2
- 04Document intake, OCR and version ordering.Week 2
- 05Term, territory and media clause extraction.Week 2, Week 3
- 06Amendment chain and supersession logic.Week 3
- 07Music, archive and underlying-rights split.Week 3, Week 4
- 08Conflict, silence and gap marking.Week 4
- 09Clearances review and sign-off record.Week 4, Week 5
- 10Evaluation suite, slices and past questions.Week 4, Week 5
- 11Rights-system integration and pack delivery.Week 5, Week 6
- 12Observability, deployment and Agent Care handover.Week 6
12 workstreams · 6 weeks · bar shows the weeks a workstream is active — several run in parallel
Final scope and sequence confirmed in discovery
Engagement tiers
What each tier includes
Rows are the capabilities named in each tier's scope. Higher tiers include everything below them.
| Capability✓ in scope · — not at this tier | PilotOne title set, one question type | ProductionProduction contract-store integration | AdvancedMulti-catalogue / multi-territory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Introduced at Pilot | |||
| Document search across your contract store | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Clause extraction with document and page cites | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Amendment and supersession ordering | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Conflict, silence and gap marking | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Clearances-manager sign-off | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Baseline evaluation | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Introduced at Production | |||
| Cue-sheet and archive-licence sources | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Contract-store and rights-system integration | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Observability and slice evaluation | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Introduced at Advanced | |||
| Multi-catalogue and multi-territory libraries | — | — | ✓ |
| Multi-language contracts and enterprise controls | — | — | ✓ |
| Build price | From $5,000 | From $8,000 | Custom quote |
- Final build price
- Confirmed after discovery based on contract-store size and document formats, scan and OCR quality, title and territory coverage, rights-system integrations, approval controls and deployment requirements.
- Separate from build
- Build pricing is separate from recurring Agent Care, which covers managed monitoring, evaluations, incidents and verified improvements after launch.
What we need from you
What you bring, and what we build with it
Each input maps to a piece of build scope and a week in the delivery timeline.
You bring
We build with it
01Access to your contract store and document archive
→Contract store and document-source review
Week 102Your title, version and identifier records
→Title, version and identifier mapping
Week 103Sample agreements, amendments and side letters
→Document intake, OCR and version ordering
Week 204The clause types your clearances team asks for
→Term, territory and media clause extraction
Week 205Cue sheets, archive licences and underlying-rights files
→Music, archive and underlying-rights split
Week 306Questions that went wrong, and the ones nearly missed
→Evaluation suite, slices and past questions
Week 407Named clearances managers and the counsel behind them
→Clearances review workflow, then delivery under sign-off
Weeks 5–6
Nothing else is required
Deployment, documentation and Agent Care handover are ours.
Delivery timeline
Four phases across six weeks
Phases are drawn over the weeks they actually occupy. Week 5 carries the first packs a clearances manager works from.
Phase
W1
W2
W3
W4
W5
W6
- DiscoveryW1
- BuildW2 – W3
- EvaluateW4 – W5
- Pilot & LaunchW5 – W6
Week focus
W1Question types, document sources and who answers what
W2Contract intake, OCR and version ordering wired in
W3Clause extraction, amendment chain and music separation
W4Conflict and gap marking, evaluation suite and slices
W5Rights-system integration and first packs under sign-off
W6Live lookups under clearances review, then Agent Care
- Reading the band
- Amendment and supersession logic lands in week 3, before any conflict is marked in week 4. The bars show that dependency, not a smooth ramp.
- At the end of W6
- Named clearances managers have worked from live packs, with the document, page and date behind every clause quoted, then Agent Care takes over monitoring.
- Duration
- Six-week plan shown · typical delivery 4–6 weeks depending on scope confirmed in discovery.
Next step · Media AI agent
Build a rights-lookup agent around your contract store and your clearances team.
Show us where your agreements, amendments and cue sheets actually live, and a rights question your team answered last month. We'll run that same question through a lookup and show you which documents it found, which it could not, and where the file contradicts itself.
- Typical delivery
- 4–6 weeks
- Deployment
- Your contract and rights stack
- Who answers
- A clearances manager or counsel
- After launch
- Agent Care available
Nestack Agents · Rights & licensing lookup
AGT-ME-02 · Agent Care available after launch