WALDHORN.AIThe Review
Review a contract free

No. R1Register

Where the lawwas actually read.

15 jurisdictions read by name, 60 reached, and every rule tied to the statute or judgment behind it and dated the day a person last checked it. A legal rule should not reach a contract because the contract contains a matching word.

The WALDHORN.AI Review · Register of researched jurisdictions

Abstract

The ledger is the law WALDHORN.AI drafts and reviews with: statutes, regulations and judgments, read place by place, each rule tied to its primary source and dated the day a person last checked it. Its rules reach 38 draftable agreement types through the conditions of each deal, not through keyword matching.

It is not a stock of contracts. A library of ten thousand agreements is ten thousand other people’s deals, signed under other laws; it cannot say what the law requires where you sign. The ledger says exactly that, and each agreement is drafted for the deal in front of it.

60
places whose contracts get verified rules: 15 read by name, 45 through the federal layer
38
kinds of music agreement it drafts
2,577
questions it can put about a deal, up to 118 for a single one
456
known traps in the review's playbook, written by hand

A jurisdiction is counted as read only when entries are filed under its own name. That is a narrower claim than it sounds, and it is the one worth making: inheriting a federal rule is not the same as having read a state’s law, so the 45 places reached that way are shown as reached, never as read.

Where the law is held

Law is not a list. It is a map, and a contract signed in one place is governed by rules that were never written for the next.

The globe below is the ledger, drawn where it applies. A beam rises from each of the 15 jurisdictions read by name. The United States glows because the federal layer reaches every one of its 51 jurisdictions, and the threads from Washington are that layer reaching the states whose own law has been read on top of it. Pick a place to turn the globe to it.

Figure 1The ledger, drawn where it applies

United States

United Kingdom and Ireland

Continental Europe

Brightest: countries whose law is read for the whole country. Bronze: the United States, reached in full by the federal layer. Beams: the 15 places read by name.Source: WALDHORN.AI legal ledger, latest check 21 Sep 2026. Map data: Natural Earth.

The register

15 jurisdictions, each with what its law covers. Open any row for the primary sources behind it and the day each was checked.

  1. CaliforniaPublicity rights, Recording services, Restraint of trade, Agency licensing, AI training rights, AI transparency, Confidentiality, Data protection, Digital replica, Minors, Performer consent, Post-mortem replica, Work for hire, Worker classification
  2. New YorkAgency licensing, Confidentiality, Data protection, Minors, Performer consent, Publicity rights, Restraint of trade
  3. England and WalesAgency licensing, Confidentiality, Endorsement disclosure, Restraint of trade
  4. IrelandAI training rights, Publicity rights, Royalties accounting, Termination of transfers, Work for hire
  5. TennesseeData protection, Minors, Performer consent, Publicity rights, Restraint of trade
  6. FranceRoyalties accounting
  7. GermanyRoyalties accounting
  8. ItalyRoyalties accounting
  9. NetherlandsRoyalties accounting
  10. TexasData protection, Performer consent, Restraint of trade
  11. OklahomaAgency licensing
  12. PolandRoyalties accounting
  13. ScotlandAgency licensing
  14. SpainRoyalties accounting
  15. IllinoisPerformer consent

Latest check 21 Sep 2026. Each row gives the date of its own most recent check.

The rest of the figures

The landing page states these as sentences rather than counters, on the view that a number without its definition beside it teaches a reader nothing. Here is each one with the definition attached.

What the catalogue holds, with what each figure counts.
FigureWhat it counts
2,577Questions the intake puts about a deal, across the whole catalogue. The deepest single agreement asks 118; half of them ask 69 or more.
5,939Answers those questions accept, across every select and checkbox.
456Known deal traps in the Risk Playbook, 12 per agreement type, written by hand. Some carry the year they became a risk, so an older contract is asked only the ones that existed when it was signed.
60Places whose contracts get verified rules: the 15 read by name, and every other US state and DC through the federal layer.
38Agreement types that can be drafted from a guided intake today.

What a jurisdiction inherits

A place is not limited to the rules filed under its own name.

Jurisdictions sit in a graph. Every one of the 51 US jurisdictions, the fifty states and the District of Columbia, inherits the federal layer: the subjects federal law governs wherever the contract is signed, from the whistleblower notice a confidentiality clause should carry to the termination right no agreement can waive. So a Texas contract and a Vermont one both carry them, because they genuinely apply, not because the state was guessed at, and a state read by name adds its own law on top.

The graph carries the same shape for the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada, with each nation, state and province beneath its own layer; the United States’ federal layer is the one that holds rules today. The graph also records when a chain crosses a sovereign. Rules reached that way are marked as borrowed rather than presented as the law of the contract, because a rule that would be wrong to name as local law is worth showing and worth labelling.

Why this is not a formality

The same agreement, under two of the jurisdictions above, is not the same document with a different governing-law clause.

  1. Who may find the artist work

    Under California:

    Procuring employment for an artist is the occupation of a talent agency and needs a licence from the Labor Commissioner, with recording contracts the exception. The agreement has to say the manager is not a licensed talent agency, and it cannot send that dispute to arbitration, because the Labor Commissioner hears it.

    Talent Agencies Act, Cal. Lab. Code §§ 1700.4–1700.44

    Under New York:

    A different statute and a different way out. The business is a theatrical employment agency, and the escape is that seeking work is only INCIDENTAL to managing the artist. California’s recording-contract carve-out has no counterpart here, so importing the Californian analysis writes the wrong defence into the clause.

    N.Y. Gen. Bus. Law §§ 171, 172

    Under England and Wales:

    There is no Talent Agencies Act. The business is an employment agency, which may not charge a work-seeker at all except under the exception prescribed for performers, so the commission clause has to say what it is charging in reliance on. The words “talent agency” do not belong in the document.

    Employment Agencies Act 1973, s. 6 · Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003, Sch. 3

  2. How long the tie can run

    Under California:

    Counting every option and renewal, the agreement cannot be enforced against the artist beyond seven years from commencement. A post-term restriction is void to that extent, and choosing another state’s law will not preserve one.

    Cal. Lab. Code § 2855(a) · Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 16600

    Under New York:

    No statutory ban of the Californian kind. A restraint is tested at common law on three prongs (no greater than required, no undue hardship, not injurious to the public), and severance is not the safety net it is usually drafted as: a court may narrow an overbroad term only where the employer shows no overreaching.

    BDO Seidman v Hirshberg, 93 N.Y.2d 382

    Under England and Wales:

    There is no seven-year rule. The length of the tie is tested for reasonableness together with the artist’s right to end it, and whether the artist was independently advised is part of the answer, which is why it belongs in the recitals.

    Proactive Sports Management v Rooney [2011] EWCA Civ 1444 · Panayiotou v Sony Music

  3. Name, likeness and voice after death

    Under California:

    Seventy years from death. A digital replica of the artist after death needs the consent of whoever holds that right, and for a performance fixed on or after 1 January 2025 a digital-replica provision can be unenforceable outright.

    Cal. Civ. Code § 3344.1 · Cal. Lab. Code § 927

    Under New York:

    Forty years, not seventy, and the difference is not academic, because no claim lies at all for a use before the successor registers it with the Secretary of State. The estate clause therefore has to require that registration, which a Californian draft never mentions.

    N.Y. Civ. Rights Law §§ 50-f, 51

    Under England and Wales:

    There is no right of publicity and no personality right to license, so there is no term to state. The permission is contractual and the agreement is the whole of it: it has to say what may be done with the name, image, likeness and voice, for how long, where, and in what media.

    Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, s. 85 · the tort of passing off

One agreement, three governing laws. Not the same document with a different governing-law clause: two American states disagree with each other in every row, and in England there is no Talent Agencies Act, no seven-year rule, and no right of publicity to license. Each rule above is held against its primary source, with the date it was last verified.

Three clauses of one management agreement, and in each of them the English answer is that something familiar from the Californian analysis does not exist. That is the class of difference no template carries and no keyword match can find, because there is no matching word in the document to catch on. It is reachable only by resolving the agreement type, the governing law and the facts of the deal before deciding which rules belong at all.

How the engine reads a contract covers the rest of that pipeline.