Reply To: Basic Engineering/Production Contracts

[Jeff MacdonaldModerator]

From my non-music life experience dealing with contracts they really are not a one-size fits all affair.

From my business law courses you just need to ensure that these elements are present:

an Offer (e.g., I will record X number songs, etc.)

Acceptance (e.g., signatures from both parties)

Consideration (e.g., Payment details, be it lump sum for the session or an hourly rate)

Capacity to contract (e.g., Make sure they are not drunk or a minor or it may render the contract void or voidable)

Outside of those elements everything else is just other clauses that may be prevalent to the arrangement.

Here is a relatively simple contact for services rendered in the US (it might be worthwhile finding another form for your jurisdiction if you are not American as laws are quite different around the world)

https://www.printablecontracts.com/Contract_For_Services_Rendered.php

With this form you just take out the bit about Auditing and replace it with a detailed account of what you will do. From my experience you should make this as detailed as possible to prevent scope creep/disagreements.

The "The Client shall pay the Provider for services rendered according to the Payment Schedule attached, within calendar days of the date on any invoice for services rendered from the Provider." is good if you have a complex payment arrangement, but it could read like "The Client shall pay the Provider $XXXX within XX calendar days of the date on any invoice for services rendered from the Provider." For a more simple single payment scenario.

I will end with saying that I am not a lawyer, but I do work in Internal Audit and as such I do a lot of contract compliance work. I have use a very similar block contract for any paid recording I do, but it is slightly different as I am Canadian and our civil laws are slightly different than our friends south of the border.

Hope this helps a bit.

Cheers,

Jeff