Systems and methods relating to a platform for creating, monitoring, updating, and executing legal agreements for data files such as a collaborate digital media file using associated metadata. The platform enables music publishing agreements to be generated automatically by taking metadata from a DAW (digital audio workstation) that reflects the activity and contributions of each author associated with a file. Authorship metadata can be recorded on a ledger or blockchain by the platform. The platform enables calculation and disbursement of royalties to be automated by algorithmic determination of terms of an authenticated smart contract using authorship metadata for an associated media file generating the royalty. Authors may concurrently contribute from across a variety of different DAWs, local and remote, and computing resources may be distributed by the platform.