Creating a custom Music Collaboration Agreement Generator was a challenging and rewarding project, combining a solid technical stack with a user-friendly experience. This web-based tool is designed to help music producers and artists generate a legally binding agreement, which they can export as a PDF. The core functionality revolves around generating detailed music production agreements that can include elements like royalty splits, scope of use, and optional notarization.

Technical Overview

The application is hosted on Vercel for optimal performance, ensuring quick loading times and seamless deployment. I utilized a combination of Next.js for server-side rendering (SSR) and React for building interactive UI components. This allowed me to efficiently render content dynamically, while maintaining high-performance standards, even for a document-heavy application like this.

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Tech Stack & Libraries

1. Next.js: The backbone of the application, Next.js provides automatic code splitting and efficient server-side rendering, making the web application fast and SEO-friendly. Since the application is highly dynamic, Next.js enabled seamless page routing and optimized data fetching for the form fields.

2. React: As the primary library for building interactive UIs, React enables a modular approach to designing the agreement generation process. I took advantage of React hooks like useState and useEffect to manage the state of the application and handle complex logic around form inputs.

3. TailwindCSS: For styling, I opted to use TailwindCSS. This utility-first CSS framework allowed for rapid prototyping while maintaining consistency in design. The customizability and responsive nature of TailwindCSS helped streamline the process of styling, especially with dynamic forms.

4. ShadCN: In combination with TailwindCSS, ShadCN was utilized for building accessible and visually appealing UI components. ShadCN helped enhance the form's interactive elements, ensuring users had a smooth experience when generating their agreements.

5. Styled Components: While TailwindCSS and ShadCN covered most of the styling, I used Styled Components for highly specific custom UI components that required complex styling and behavior. This approach provided a way to scope styles at a component level, improving maintainability and flexibility.

6. TypeScript: TypeScript was used throughout the project for type safety and to minimize runtime errors. It allowed me to define precise types for each section of the agreement and handle dynamic data such as user inputs and modular clauses with confidence.

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Key Features and Components

1. Form Inputs & Dynamic Clauses: The core functionality of the application revolves around generating a detailed music production agreement. Users can input data through a series of form fields, including Artist and Producer details, Scope of Use, Royalty Splits, and Master Ownership. Each input is dynamically validated and parsed, ensuring the generated agreement is consistent and valid.

2. Scope of Use Section: One of the most complex parts of the agreement is the Scope of Use. This section is highly customizable, allowing users to select multiple rights such as Digital Distribution, Commercial Sale, and Music Video Use. Each of these rights is represented as a toggle option, and users can easily modify the rights to match their specific needs. This modular section is entirely driven by React state, and updates in real-time based on user input.

3. Royalty Split Mechanism: A key feature of the tool is the Royalty Split section. The application provides a flexible model where the royalty percentages are split into Sound Recording Rights (Masters) and Publishing Rights (Composition). Users can input percentages for both, ensuring the split is accurate and tailored to the agreement.

4. Notarization Toggle: While the tool does not automatically notarize agreements, a toggle was included that adds an optional notarization page to the agreement. This feature allows users to manually take the agreement to a notary, adding flexibility while maintaining a user-friendly approach to legal documentation.

5. PDF Export: Once the agreement is generated, users can export it as a PDF file. This is facilitated using the React-pdf library, which converts the agreement into a structured, readable document, making it easy for users to download and print. The PDF export includes all fields, selected clauses, and any optional notarization page, ensuring the document is ready for use.

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Building the Core Logic: Custom Class, Interfaces, Types, and Methods

One of the key highlights of this project is the creation of the underlying logic and structure, which I built from the ground up. I coded the MusicProdArtistAgreement class, which serves as the heart of the agreement generation process. This class encapsulates all the essential fields and properties of the music collaboration agreement, making it a highly modular and customizable solution.

To ensure flexibility and type safety, I wrote custom TypeScript interfaces and types to define the data structure. These types are used to represent various sections of the agreement, such as Scope of Work, Royalty Split, and Termination Clauses, ensuring the tool generates agreements with consistent and well-structured data.

Additionally, I used enums specifically for managing Master Ownership options, giving users clear and predefined choices for the ownership structure, such as Joint Master Ownership, Artist Ownership, and Producer Ownership. This helps streamline the user experience and ensures consistency in the agreement’s legal terms.

The methods within the MusicProdArtistAgreement class handle the logic for adding clauses, calculating royalty splits, and enabling additional features like the Notarization Toggle. Everything was programmed with precision, focusing on building a seamless and user-friendly tool without relying on external libraries for the core functionality.

By programming these components myself, I ensured full control over the design and functionality of the agreement generator, making it tailored specifically to the needs of music producers and artists.

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Architecture

The application follows a serverless architecture, leveraging Vercel’s hosting platform for both front-end and back-end functionality. Next.js’s file-based routing makes it simple to define different pages, such as the agreement generation form and the terms and conditions page.

On the front-end, I used React to build out the dynamic form fields that accept user inputs for each section of the agreement. These components are stateless, relying on React's useState and useEffect hooks to manage data and perform any necessary validation.

For storing and managing dynamic agreement content, I employed a simple, yet efficient state management approach using useState for form-level state and passed data between components via props.

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Security and Legal Considerations

Although this tool generates legally valid documents, it is important to note that it does not offer legal advice or automatically notarize agreements. The notarization toggle simply adds an extra page for users who wish to have their agreement notarized manually. As always, I recommend users consult with a legal professional before signing or executing any legally binding agreements.

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Conclusion

Building the Music Collaboration Agreement Generator was a rewarding experience that combined my knowledge of Next.js, React, and TypeScript with my interest in simplifying legal documentation for musicians. By using a combination of modern front-end technologies like TailwindCSS, ShadCN, and Styled Components, I was able to create a robust tool that helps artists and producers generate customized music production agreements with ease. The flexibility built into the tool ensures it can adapt to the specific needs of each user, while maintaining simplicity and usability.

If you’re interested in the project or have any questions, feel free to check out the code on GitHub or reach out to me for further details.

Try it HERE.

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I am passionate about art, music, fashion, and technology. My curiosity and strong work ethic drive me to excel and innovate across multiple domains.

I’m open to commission work, collaborations, and side quests. If you like what I build, let’s connect.

Let’s work! Your vision, my magic.

Email: business@thezelijah.world

With love,
Zelijah