acquire_rights

acquire_rights is the AdCP task for binding rights acquisition. Submit a pricing option and campaign details to receive generation credentials, rights constraints, and disclosure requirements from a brand agent.

Binding contractual request to acquire rights from a brand agent. Parallels create_media_buy — select a pricing_option_id from get_rights and provide campaign details. The agent clears against existing contracts and returns terms, generation credentials, and disclosure requirements.

Schema

• Request: acquire-rights-request.json
• Response: acquire-rights-response.json

Response time

Seconds to minutes for acquired or rejected. The pending_approval status means the rights holder needs to review — resolution may take hours to days.

Quick start

Request

{
  "rights_id": "janssen_likeness_voice",
  "pricing_option_id": "monthly_exclusive",
  "buyer": {
    "domain": "bistro-oranje.nl",
    "brand_id": "bistro_oranje"
  },
  "campaign": {
    "description": "AI-generated video ads for Bistro Oranje steakhouse featuring Daan Janssen",
    "uses": ["likeness", "voice"],
    "countries": ["NL"],
    "format_ids": [
      { "agent_url": "https://creative.adcontextprotocol.org", "id": "video_social_1080x1920" }
    ],
    "estimated_impressions": 50000,
    "start_date": "2026-04-01",
    "end_date": "2026-06-30"
  },
  "revocation_webhook": {
    "url": "https://buyer.bistro-oranje.nl/webhooks/revocation",
    "authentication": {
      "schemes": ["HMAC-SHA256"],
      "credentials": "whsk_bo_abc123...shared_secret_min_32_chars"
    }
  },
  "idempotency_key": "acq_bo_janssen_2026q2_001",
  "push_notification_config": {
    "url": "https://buyer.bistro-oranje.nl/webhooks/adcp/acquire_rights/op_abc123",
    "authentication": {
      "schemes": ["HMAC-SHA256"],
      "credentials": "whsk_bo_xyz789...shared_secret_min_32_chars"
    }
  }
}

Parameters

Request

Field	Type	Required	Description
rights_id	string	Yes	Rights offering identifier from get_rights
pricing_option_id	string	Yes	Selected pricing option
buyer	brand-ref	Yes	Buyer’s brand identity
campaign.description	string	Yes	How the rights will be used
campaign.uses	string[]	Yes	Specific rights uses for this campaign
campaign.countries	string[]	No	Countries where the campaign will run
campaign.format_ids	format-id[]	No	Creative formats that will be produced
campaign.estimated_impressions	integer	No	Estimated total impressions
campaign.start_date	date	No	Campaign start date
campaign.end_date	date	No	Campaign end date
revocation_webhook	push-notification-config	Yes	Webhook for revocation notifications. If the rights holder needs to revoke rights, they POST a revocation-notification to this URL.
idempotency_key	string	No	Client-generated key for safe retries. Resubmitting with the same key returns the original response.
push_notification_config	push-notification-config	No	Webhook for async status updates if the acquisition requires approval. See push notifications.

Response statuses

The response uses a discriminated union on status:

Status	Description	Key fields
acquired	Rights cleared, credentials issued	terms, generation_credentials, rights_constraint, disclosure
pending_approval	Requires rights holder review	detail, estimated_response_time
rejected	Request denied	reason, suggestions (optional)

When suggestions is present on a rejected response, the rejection is actionable — the buyer can adjust their request and retry. When suggestions is absent, the rejection is final and the buyer should not retry for this rights/talent combination. This convention applies consistently across acquire_rights rejections, get_rights excluded results, and creative approval rejections.

Generation credentials

When rights are acquired, the agent coordinates with LLM providers to issue scoped credentials:

1. Agent clears the rights against existing contracts
2. Agent tells the provider (e.g., Midjourney): “Issue a rights key for this talent, licensed to this buyer”
3. Agent returns the credentials to the buyer

Any creative agent can use these credentials. The LLM provider enforces usage constraints at generation time — the rights agent sets up the permission, the provider is the gatekeeper.

Field	Type	Description
provider	string	LLM/generation service (e.g., “midjourney”, “elevenlabs”)
rights_key	string	Scoped API key for generating rights-cleared content
uses	string[]	Rights uses this credential covers
expires_at	datetime	When the credential expires (provider-determined)
endpoint	uri	Provider endpoint for rights-scoped generation (optional, uses provider default if omitted)

Rights constraint

When status is acquired, the response includes a rights_constraint object:

Field	Type	Description
rights_constraint	object	Pre-built constraint for creative manifests. Contains validity period, country restrictions, and impression cap from agreed terms. Embed directly in the manifest’s rights array.

Creative lifecycle

After acquiring rights:

1. Generate: Creative agent uses generation_credentials to produce content
2. Manifest: Embed the rights_constraint from the acquire_rights response directly into the creative manifest’s rights array. The rights agent pre-builds this constraint with the correct validity period, country restrictions, and impression cap from the agreed terms.
3. Approve: POST a creative-approval-request to the approval_webhook URL, authenticating with the provided credentials. The response is a creative-approval-response with status approved, rejected, or pending_review. If pending_review, poll the returned status_url for updates (suggested: every 5 minutes, back off to every 30 minutes after 1 hour).
4. Serve: Place approved creative via create_media_buy, respecting country and date restrictions
5. Report: Use report_usage with rights_id for cap tracking and billing

If acquire_rights returns pending_approval and you provided push_notification_config, you’ll receive a webhook notification when the status changes to acquired or rejected. Otherwise, re-call acquire_rights with the same rights_id and idempotency_key after the estimated_response_time interval. Set approval_status: 'pending' on any creative manifests built during this period.

Revocation

If the rights holder needs to revoke rights (talent controversy, contract violation, etc.), they POST a revocation-notification to the buyer’s revocation_webhook, authenticating with the credentials provided at acquisition time. The notification contains a notification_id (for deduplication), rights_id, brand_id, reason, and effective_at timestamp.

The buyer is responsible for:

• Deduplicating by notification_id — the same revocation may be delivered multiple times
• Stopping creative delivery by effective_at
• Removing or replacing affected creatives from active campaigns
• Ceasing use of generation credentials (providers may also invalidate credentials independently)

Partial revocation is supported — if revoked_uses is present, only those uses are revoked (e.g., voice revoked but likeness remains).

Acknowledging revocations

Return HTTP 200 immediately upon receiving and validating a revocation notification. The rights holder retries on non-2xx responses using exponential backoff (1s, 5s, 30s, 5m, 30m). After 6 failed attempts, the rights holder may escalate through other channels.

All webhook authentication uses the AdCP push notification signing convention — X-ADCP-Signature and X-ADCP-Timestamp headers with HMAC-SHA256.

Impression caps and overage

When terms.impression_cap is set, it is a soft cap. Delivery is not automatically halted at the cap — the buyer is responsible for monitoring usage via report_usage and managing delivery accordingly. Impressions beyond the cap are billed at terms.overage_cpm. If the rights holder wants a hard cap (no delivery beyond the limit), they specify this in restrictions.

Usage reporting

The usage_reporting_url in the acquired response is a convenience endpoint provided by the rights agent for HTTP-based impression reporting. It accepts the same payload as the report_usage MCP task. Use whichever integration is simpler for your pipeline — the MCP tool for agent-to-agent workflows, or the URL for direct HTTP calls from ad servers.

Renewal and updates

To extend a rights grant, adjust impression caps, change pricing, or pause/resume, use update_rights. Extended grants receive re-issued generation credentials and an updated rights_constraint for re-embedding in manifests.

Next steps

update_rights

Extend, adjust, or pause an existing rights grant.

report_usage

Report impressions against rights grants for billing and cap tracking.

brand.json spec

Rights constraints on creative manifests.