rights-mcp

The rights layer for the agent economy. An MCP server that lets an AI agent search, license, and pay for rights-clean music per use — and walk away with a verifiable license certificate proving it's allowed to use the track.

Built on x402 for payment and the fair-exchange escrow pattern from x402-pact: the agent's money only moves once the licensed asset and a signed certificate are bound to the payment. Zero dependencies, no SDK, no LLM in the loop — it runs anywhere Node runs and behaves identically whether or not any AI service is reachable.

Why this exists

An agent generating a video, ad, or stream doesn't need "a track." It needs a track it is allowed to use, with a paper trail proving it. That paper trail is only worth anything if whoever issues it actually controls the rights. That's the moat: the catalog adapter is the one piece a generic tool can't fake — it's where a real rights holder (e.g. a music catalog like Soundraw) plugs in.

Everything else here — pricing, escrow, certificates, the MCP wire protocol — is plumbing, and it's all built and tested.

The loop

search_tracks ──▶ quote_license ──▶ license_track ──▶ verify_license
   (previews)       (price + x402     (pay → settle      (offline proof
                     requirements)     ONLY on delivery)   of rights)

npm run demo
# 1. search → picked "Low Tide" (trk_lowtide), creator price $0.162
# 2. quote  → q_7ab4..., $0.162 for creator usage
# 3. pay+settle → license lic_498f..., tx sim-settle:3a6b...
#    split: rights-holder $0.1377, platform $0.0243
# 4. verify → VALID certificate

MCP tools

Tool	What it does
search_tracks	Query the catalog by mood/genre/bpm/text. Returns previews + per-usage price estimates. No licensed asset.
quote_license	Price a track for a usage tier (personal/creator/commercial/broadcast); returns x402 paymentRequirements + a quoteId.
license_track	Pay a quote. Funds settle only after the asset + a signed certificate are bound to the payment (fair exchange). Returns the deliverable + certificate.
verify_license	Verify a certificate offline: validly signed by the rights issuer, with its terms.
catalog_stats	Issuer key, network, take rate, licenses issued, balances.

Run it as an MCP server

npm start          # stdio JSON-RPC, ready for any MCP client

Claude Desktop / Claude Code mcpServers entry:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "rights": { "command": "node", "args": ["/abs/path/to/rights-mcp/src/server.js"] }
  }
}

Or drive it with no client (the "no LLM" path)

rights search "calm lofi"
rights quote trk_lowtide creator
rights license <quoteId>
rights verify <certificate>
rights stats

Economics

license_track settles the price and splits it on the certificate: rights holder gets their share, the platform keeps takeRateBps (default 15%). The split is signed into every license, so it's auditable, not a trust-me number. Set with RIGHTS_TAKE_BPS.

Configuration

Env	Default	Meaning
RIGHTS_NETWORK	sim	sim = no chain, auto-pays a funded demo wallet. A real network (e.g. solana-mainnet) requires a signed x402 payment.
RIGHTS_TAKE_BPS	1500	Platform cut in basis points.
RIGHTS_PAYTO	soundraw-payout	Rights-holder payout address.
SOUNDRAW_API_KEY	—	When set, swaps the sample catalog for the real Soundraw rights catalog.

What's real vs. stubbed (honest seams)

This is a working spine with two deliberate, clearly-labelled seams where production drops in:

• Catalog — ships with an 8-track sample catalog so it runs with no credentials. SoundrawCatalog is the drop-in for the real rights API (same interface; the rest of the server is unchanged). Sample deliverables are labelled placeholders, not real licensed audio.
• Settlement — SimBank proves the full escrow→split loop with no chain. A Solana facilitator adapter (settle a partially-signed tx / durable nonce) drops in behind the same calls. Real on-chain settlement is not yet wired.

Everything else — escrow/fair-exchange semantics, Ed25519 certificate signing & verification, double-spend / expiry / underpayment rejection, the MCP protocol — is real and covered by 17 no-mock tests (npm test), including a full roundtrip against the actual server over stdio.

License

MIT