Source ↗

Equip your team for AI licensing

Try setting catalog terms, reviewing rights evidence and recording an approval with a sample work. Then plan how your label, publisher, PRO, CMO or catalog administration will offer the service to its artists and songwriters.

Try the sample catalog ↗See the install steps
Database
PostgreSQL
Services
API, web console, webhook worker, permission-expiry worker
Starts with
Docker Compose, one command
Runs in
Infrastructure your organization controls

Start with a familiar request

Choose a use you want to evaluate, such as lyrics, vocal stems or AI generation. In the sample catalog, apply creator preferences, check your authority, assign a reviewer, and follow the required credits and payment evidence.

For an installation, bring together the people responsible for licensing, artist and songwriter relationships, and technical operations. Agree the first catalog, who approves what, and the records Clef exchanges with your existing systems.

Engraved four-part music on a grand staff: a brace joins a treble staff and a bass staff, each in one flat and common time. A one-beat pickup and two bars of chords follow, two voices on each staff, the phrase ending under fermatas.
J. S. Bach, O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden, from the St Matthew Passion, 1727. As cantor in Leipzig, Bach drew a fixed salary of about 100 thalers and relied on fees, chiefly for weddings and funerals, for the rest of his pay. In 1730 he complained that a healthy year, with fewer funerals, had cost him more than 100 thalers.

Your first licensing decision

Docker Compose starts PostgreSQL, the API, web console, webhook worker and permission-expiry worker. Then work through one decision from start to signature.

# Start the sample catalog
git clone \
  https://github.com/tymrtn/clef-rights-node.git
cd clef-rights-node
cp env.sample .env
docker compose up --build -d --wait

# Open http://localhost:6482
# and check the workflow
make verify-workflow

  1. Create the administrator

    Choose the organization type, territory, administered rights and a conservative AI baseline.

  2. Add one client and work

    Use a stable client reference and an ISWC, a song code from The MLC, or an ISRC. Preview before you commit.

  3. Publish one policy

    State blocked, review or allowed uses. Configure AI operations and safeguards separately.

  4. Review authority evidence

    Keep the private contract in your own systems; record its reference and SHA-256 fingerprint.

  5. Submit from a separate requester

    Declare source material, model environment, territory, term, limits and accepted safeguards.

  6. Assign, decide and verify

    A named reviewer issues exact obligations. Verify the signature and the linked lifecycle independently.

Railway setup, owned by you

Provisional

An adopter-owned Railway topology is documented and awaits its clean-account template gate. It uses managed PostgreSQL with separate API, web, webhook-worker and expiry-worker services. Your organization owns every account, domain, secret and database.

The setup guide awaits an independent installation on a new Railway account. That check establishes whether another team can complete the instructions with its own credentials.

Inspect the Railway runbook ↗

Two ways to get started

Install it yourself

For teams with their own engineers. You install Clef, configure catalog policies and integrations, and run it in your infrastructure.

The current release is free to self-host. Your organization manages hosting, updates and administration.

US$0 software fee

Follow the setup guideCosts and ways to contribute

Have Clef set it up

For teams that want it running in their infrastructure without building it themselves.

We agree the configuration, integrations, branding and handover with your team before work begins. Your organization owns the installation and takes over day-to-day administration. Pilot organizations receive 50% off Clef’s standard setup fee for the agreed scope. Your quote shows the standard fee and the pilot discount; hosting and ongoing services are priced separately.

50% off Clef’s setup fee for pilots

Request a setup quote

Your release includes its software license. Current terms and planned own-node license. Installing for other organizations? Partner program.

Plan your installation

Tell us which catalog you administer, which requests you want to handle, and who reviews them.

Choosing Clef-assisted setup? Include your hosting environment, integrations and branding requirements so we can prepare a quote. Pilot organizations receive 50% off Clef’s standard setup fee for the agreed scope. We agree the scope, price and handover before setup begins.