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.
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
AgentHuman
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.
5DecisionSplits on document coverage and extraction confidence
Documents found, terms consistent
Reaches the clearances manager ready to read.
Gap, conflict or thin extraction
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 required8 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 boundaryAgent 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 questionIllustrative example
Question
Title
Documents
Status
Confidence
Rights answer
Clip re-use, compilation
Archive series, series 2
9 of 11 read
Unresolved — two gaps
86%
Not given by the agent
As receivedThe question as the requester asked it, the title it names, and which of the filed documents were read against it.
Evidence usedAmendment 2, cl. 4.1Side letter, undatedCue sheet, three cues
Why it is unresolvedA side letter narrows the territory the main agreement grants. The agent picks neither.
ActionAcceptCorrectEscalate to counsel
What the score decidesIt decides how closely the extraction should be re-read, not whether the clip may be used.
Value
Where AI adds value
The same four claims, placed at the point in the workflow where each one applies.
Where the value landsValue 01 – 04
Every rights questionFrom production, distribution, marketing or delivery
03Documents & chain of title
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.
01Approved path
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.
02Human review
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.
04Build 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 & royaltiesFilmTrack · Rightsline Contract abstracts · deal memos
Contract storesDocument management · e-signature archives Amendments · side letters
Music & cue dataCue sheets · music-supervision logs ISWC/ISRC references · PRO submissions
Agent
Rights & licensing lookup
Finds the documents Quotes the terms Routes to clearances
Catalogue & deliveryMAM/CMS title records · EIDR identifiers Avails and windowing feeds
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 defenceInward → L1 · closest to the model
L6Rollback / safe modeReturn lookups to manual search if evaluations or production signals degrade.Roll back
L5TraceabilityRecord the question, the documents read, the extraction, the reviewer and the answer.Record
L4Conflict markingWhere documents disagree or a term is silent, both readings are shown unresolved.Mark
L3Answer gatePermission, fair-use and clearance questions stop for a named person.Gate
L2Coverage checkDocuments the file refers to but does not hold are listed as not found.List gaps
L1Source bindingA quoted clause is checked back to the document, page and date it came from.Cite
Model coreLookup proposed — the documents read, the clauses quoted, the chain ordered and extraction confidence
L1 – L2Tie each clause to a document and a date
L3Decides who answers the rights question
L4 – L5Keep disagreement visible and the trail intact
L6Pulls 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
Depth of coverage ▼
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 lifecycleDirection of processing →
01 · Document search2 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 findsAgreements, amendments, side letters and licences
02 · Extraction2 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 quotesTerm, territory, media, exclusivity and holdbacks
03 · Chain reading1 mode
RL-05
Silence read as permission
A term the contract never addresses reads as allowed.
Stage ordersThe amendment chain, the conflicts and the silences
04 · Handover / write1 mode
RL-06
Conflict shown as one reading
Two documents disagree; only one reaches the pack.
Stage returnsThe pack read before a rights answer is given
05 · Change / Version1 mode
RL-07
Silent extraction regression
A template change drops a clause type unnoticed.
Stage tracksModel, prompt, extraction-rule and template changes
Sev-1 · a wrong term reaches the packSev-2 · a gap or conflict is not shownSev-3 · lookups degrade, search is manual
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 aggregateIllustrative 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× threshold2 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 stagesSwitchback — the path turns at Improve and returns at Learn
01Detect
Reviewer corrections, missed documents or late-surfacing amendments cluster in one contract cohort.
02Diagnose
Traced to the search scope, the extraction, the chain ordering, a defined term or a document never filed.
03Improve
The search scope, extraction rule or pack template is changed, re-read by the clearances manager and version-linked.
04Verify
Re-run against held-out questions, including the ones counsel had to correct.
05Learn
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 → DetectThe 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.
WorkstreamWeek 1Week 2Week 3Week 4Week 5Week 6
01Workflow discovery and automation-boundary definition.
02Contract store and document-source review.
03Title, version and identifier mapping.
04Document intake, OCR and version ordering.
05Term, territory and media clause extraction.
06Amendment chain and supersession logic.
07Music, archive and underlying-rights split.
08Conflict, silence and gap marking.
09Clearances review and sign-off record.
10Evaluation suite, slices and past questions.
11Rights-system integration and pack delivery.
12Observability, deployment and Agent Care handover.
12 workstreams · 6 weeks · bar shows the weeks a workstream is active — several run in parallelFinal 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 tierPilotOne title set, one question typeProductionProduction contract-store integrationAdvancedMulti-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 priceFrom $5,000From $8,000Custom quote
Final build priceConfirmed 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 buildBuild 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 bringWe build with it
01Access to your contract store and document archive→Contract store and document-source reviewWeek 1
02Your title, version and identifier records→Title, version and identifier mappingWeek 1
03Sample agreements, amendments and side letters→Document intake, OCR and version orderingWeek 2
04The clause types your clearances team asks for→Term, territory and media clause extractionWeek 2
05Cue sheets, archive licences and underlying-rights files→Music, archive and underlying-rights splitWeek 3
06Questions that went wrong, and the ones nearly missed→Evaluation suite, slices and past questionsWeek 4
07Named clearances managers and the counsel behind them→Clearances review workflow, then delivery under sign-offWeeks 5–6
Nothing else is requiredDeployment, 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.
PhaseW1W2W3W4W5W6
DiscoveryW1
BuildW2 – W3
EvaluateW4 – W5
Pilot & LaunchW5 – W6
Week focusW1Question types, document sources and who answers whatW2Contract intake, OCR and version ordering wired inW3Clause extraction, amendment chain and music separationW4Conflict and gap marking, evaluation suite and slicesW5Rights-system integration and first packs under sign-offW6Live lookups under clearances review, then Agent Care
Reading the bandAmendment 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 W6Named clearances managers have worked from live packs, with the document, page and date behind every clause quoted, then Agent Care takes over monitoring.
DurationSix-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.
