Maintain the identifiers and ownership data royalty payments depend on, reconcile inbound statements against registrations, and assemble the evidence behind a claim or a report of usage a named person signs.
A work is registered, and its writer, publisher and work identifiers are read from the registration on file.
02
A recording is matched to a work by identifier, never by a title string two compositions happen to share.
Reason
03
A work whose shares do not sum, or whose writer resolves to more than one party code, is held back.
04
A statement arrives, and each line is reconciled against expected usage with the variance written down.
05
A statement line is tested at the rate in force to the end of 2027; the next period's settlement is not adopted.
Decide
06
A report of usage is assembled to the identifier content 37 CFR 210.27 prescribes, and gaps are named.
07
A payload leaves against a supported message standard, since older versions of those standards were sunset.
Out
08
A work is retained with what it was matched from — the registration, the statement and the confidence.
09
Execute write actions only inside the approval boundaries agreed during implementation.
→Product statement
The agent maintains data and reconciles; a duly authorised officer of the licensee certifies the report of usage, and a named administrator claims the work.
Example workflow
One work, registration to signature
AgentHuman
1Registration receivedCatalogue registration, splits, identifiers and prior statements
2Identifiers resolvedRecording and work codes, writer and publisher codes, each with its source
3Match proposedWork, shares, the matching basis and confidence
4Controls appliedShare-sum checks, identifier-resolution checks, earnings-tier checks and confidence threshold
No human action required
Stages 1 to 4 run unaided, and nothing is claimed or certified at any of them — the agent is matching, and the human lane opens at the confidence gate.
5DecisionBranches at the confidence threshold
High confidence
Goes to the royalty manager to assert.
Low confidence
Adds a rights-research read first.
Royalty manager review
The match is held with its basis, its unresolved identifiers and the confidence.
Assert · Amend · Send to rights research
Asserted — released to claim▼
6Registration systems updatedOnly where write access and approval policy allow it
7Outcome evaluatedAmendments, ownership conflicts raised, unmatched carry-over and distributions received
Amendments
Every manager amendment is counted, including one made after a distribution has already run.
What should not run autonomously
Human approval stays in control
Outside the boundary — human approval required8 items
Certifying a report of usage or its annual examination.
Asserting ownership of a share of a work.
Deciding an ownership conflict between two claimants.
Agreeing or amending writer and publisher splits.
Automation boundaryAgent acts unaided
✓Maintain the identifier and ownership data behind the catalogue.
✓Propose a recording-to-work match with its basis and confidence.
✓Reconcile inbound statements and write the variance down.
✓Assemble the report content the rule prescribes,.
Any write happens inside the boundaries agreed at implementation, never ahead of a signature.
Filing or transmitting a report to the collective.
Deciding to escalate a discrepancy to an audit.
Accepting a distribution as correct and final.
Changes to matching, reporting or approval rules.
Example output
One work in the catalogue, annotated
Everything the agent matches is attached to the registration it was drawn from.
Matching output · single workIllustrative example
Catalogue
Proposed match
Earnings tier
Source of record
Confidence
Shares
Back-catalogue single
Recording resolved to the registered work by code, not by title
Lowest earning tier
Registration on file
88%
Writer and publisher, from the registration
As receivedTaken from the catalogue registration and the statement on file — nothing on this side is written by the agent.
Evidence usedRecording identifierRegistered work codePrior statement line
Why this matchThe recording resolves to one registered work and the shares behind it sum.
ActionAssertAmendSend to rights research
What the score decidesBelow the configured threshold the match picks up a rights-research read before it.
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 workFrom the registration
03Matching
Match on identifiers
Resolve each recording to the work by code, never by title. The collective holding that database had its designation continued in June 2026, with no conditions imposed.
01Approved path
Small works match worst
Matching is tiered by what a work earns. The top tier matches almost perfectly and the bottom tier does not, and the bottom tier is where nearly all the works are.
02Human review
The old black box is not the pitch
The historical unmatched pool still quoted in the market was revised down and has largely been matched and paid. The first market-share distribution of what remains is planned, not begun.
04Build an evidence trail
The work, the registration it was matched to and the officer who certified stay on the report.
Integrations
Typical integrations
Five system groups connect to the same agent. Which of them are in scope is decided in discovery.
Collective and societiesMechanical licensing collective PRO and society statements
Registration and identifiersWork and recording codes Party and name codes
Publishing administrationRoyalty statement systems Catalogue and splits
Agent
Music royalty administration
Reads the registration Proposes the match Holds for signature
Reporting and deliveryDDEX message standards Distributor statement feeds
A catalogue-level match rate is set by the works at the top of it, where matching is close to complete. The tiers beneath carry the failure, and Nestack reports the unmatched rate by earnings tier, not only in total.
Slice performance — reported separately, not only in aggregateIllustrative example
Slice
Failure rate
Lift
Lift vs. threshold
Status
Lowest-earning works
8.2%
3.7×
Review
Cover versions and re-titles
5.9%
2.7×
Review
Reissues and compilations
3.8%
1.7×
Watch
Highest-earning works
1.1%
0.5×
Normal
Bar: unmatched-rate lift vs. highest-earning baseline · scale 0–4.0× · tick marks the 2.0× review threshold2 of 4 slices over threshold
Evidence-linked improvement
Nothing closes until a test exists
A cycle shuts when the unmatched work is a case the next release has to close. That suite is what the next report certified is measured against.
Improvement cycle · five stagesSwitchback — the path turns at Improve and returns at Learn
01Detect
Unmatched rate rises in an earnings tier.
02Diagnose
The work that earned everywhere and matched almost nowhere is traced back to one cause — a re-title that broke its link to the composition.
03Improve
The correction ships numbered, with the works that prompted it attached.
04Verify
While a touched match case is failing, the release does not move.
05Learn
It is kept as a standing case, and the identifier rules are revised alongside.
Learn → DetectThe return edge. The next detection runs against a suite one unmatched-work case longer.
Typical build scope
Twelve workstreams across six weeks
The build scope read against the delivery timeline. Week structure follows the six-week plan — discovery, sources, matching workflow, evaluation, integration, then production validation and handover.
WorkstreamWeek 1Week 2Week 3Week 4Week 5Week 6
01Royalty workflow discovery and boundary definition.
02Registration and statement source review.
03Identifier, split and report-content rule mapping.
04Registration ingestion and normalisation.
05Matching logic and identifier binding.
06Confidence scoring and flag routing.
07Certification and claim workflow.
08Royalty and reporting-system integration.
09Match and identifier cases.
10Guardrails and reporting controls.
11Work-trail instrumentation.
12Deployment, documentation 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 catalogue, one sourceProductionProduction royalty systemsAdvancedMultiple societies / territories
Introduced at Pilot
Matching to your registrations✓✓✓
Human certification✓✓✓
Match-rate baseline✓✓✓
Introduced at Production
Reporting by catalogue—✓✓
Approval workflow in your systems—✓✓
Approved write-back—✓✓
Registration-system integration—✓✓
Introduced at Advanced
Multi-society rule sets——✓
Multi-stage claim approvals——✓
High catalogue volume——✓
Multi-society matching controls——✓
Build priceFrom $5,000From $8,000Custom quote
Final build priceConfirmed after discovery based on integrations, workflow complexity, transaction volume, 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
01Your catalogue registrations and split records→Registration ingestion and identifier mappingWeek 1
02Statements you have already received→Matching baseline and share-binding checksWeek 2
03Your reporting obligations and their deadlines→Identifier, split and report-content rule mappingWeek 1
04Access to relevant APIs, feeds or exports→Registration and statement assessment, then integration setupWeek 2
05Reports you would not want examined→Unmatched cases and the evaluation suiteWeek 4
06What no report may certify→Confidence scoring, flag routing, guardrails and reporting controlsWeek 3
07Named royalty managers and the certifying officer→Certification workflow, then pilot and production validationWeeks 5–6
Nothing else is requiredDeployment, documentation and Agent Care handover are ours.
Delivery timeline
Four phases across six weeks
Each band lands on the weeks the work really occupies, so the fifth carries two of them together.
PhaseW1W2W3W4W5W6
DiscoveryW1
BuildW2 – W3
EvaluateW4 – W5
Pilot & LaunchW5 – W6
Week focusW1Royalty workflow discovery, rule mapping and the automation boundaryW2Registration and statement integration and the matching baselineW3Matching workflow, confidence logic and reporting controlsW4Evaluation suite, share and identifier checks and failure-mode testingW5Reporting-format integration, a pilot catalogue and targeted correctionsW6One accounting period run under the royalty manager, then Agent Care handover
Reading the bandA bar spans the weeks its work is named in and no others. The week 5 overlap is work, not padding.
At the end of W6Validation closes on live statements, and monitoring moves to Agent Care.
DurationSix-week plan shown · typical delivery 4–6 weeks depending on scope confirmed in discovery.
Next step · Media & Entertainment AI agent
Build a royalty administration agent around the data a claim rests on.
Show us your registrations, your statements and who signs. The certification that carries a personal signature sits with the blanket licensee's officer on each report of usage, and with the CPA who examines the annual one.
