MMF's AI guide gives managers a letter, not new AI rights

The audio task

A UK music manager fielding a label or publisher's pitch involving a generative or voice-AI tool has to know what to ask before a client signs anything, since most existing contracts were never written with AI rights in mind.

What the documents show

The Music Managers Forum's own announcement, dated 14 September 2023, states that its new "Music Managers Guide to AI," written by CMU's Chris Cooke as part of the MMF's Dissecting The Digital Dollar project, provides "essential advice to managers and encourag[es] them to protect their clients' rights," and includes a template letter developed by the Council of Music Makers for managers to send to existing and future partners. A companion MMF post recapping the Manager Summit that preceded the guide's launch, published 20 September 2023, quotes entertainment lawyer Nick Eziefula of Simkins LLP advising managers to "do a legal audit" of existing deals for approval rights that predate any AI clause, and to "insert new control clauses into your contracts" going forward, while acknowledging labels and publishers may resist adding them. Neither MMF post reproduces the guide's or the template letter's full text.

Rights status

As MMF's own materials describe it, the guide and template letter are advisory tools for managers to raise AI rights questions with partners; they are not a licence, a ruling, or a guarantee that any partner will agree to new AI-specific contract terms. The Summit recap explicitly frames inserting new control clauses as something "not a given you'll get... agreed," naming the tension between managers' clients and the companies that control existing rights.

What to check before you use it

This is an editorial checklist, as MMF itself frames the guide's role. Before relying on the Council of Music Makers' template letter, download the current version from MMF's own site rather than a secondhand copy, treat the legal-audit advice as a starting checklist rather than a substitute for a lawyer's review of a specific contract, and confirm which of a client's existing deals actually lack AI-specific approval language before assuming none of them cover it.

• Does my client's existing contract already include an approval right that would cover an AI use, even without naming AI directly?
• Have I sent the Council of Music Makers' template letter to the specific partner proposing an AI use?
• Is the guidance I'm relying on the current version from MMF's site, or an outdated copy?

MMF's own record shows a professional body equipping managers to ask better questions, not a settled set of AI contract terms that already exists across the industry.