Senior Specialist, Clearances and Music Rights

About the role

The Senior Specialist, Clearances and Music Rights role supports the Music Licensing team by assisting with the day-to-day execution of rights clearances and music licensing processes. This role contributes to the organizational efficiency and consistency of the department's clearance and rights management function.

Responsibilities

• Negotiate standard sync and clearance requests within defined guidelines (e.g., scope, term, territory, media)
• Evaluate rights and usage details to determine clearance path, required approvals, and documentation needed (e.g., chain of title, splits, publisher/label contacts)
• Coordinate with Label and Artist Relations, Programming, and Marketing to facilitate music and asset clearance requests
• Support the music licensing process by preparing key documentation, monitoring budgets, and tracking clearances and payment flows from start to finish
• Track project progress and follow up with internal and external teams to ensure deadlines and objectives are being met
• Cultivate and maintain relationships with labels and publishers, as well as internal and other external partners
• Affiliate with managing music library relationships and licensing documentation
• Troubleshoot basic rights management, metadata and asset issues, and rights disputes through coordination with internal operations and curation teams and external rights-holders
• Assist with the operational oversight of smaller-scale, defined clearance projects within the team
• Establish and track service-level timelines for requests; provide regular status updates and surface blockers early with recommended options
• Partner with Finance/AP and internal stakeholders to ensure license administration accuracy, including invoice validation, payment tracking, and documentation completeness
• Identify recurring issues (e.g., incomplete requests, rights ambiguity, payment delays) and implement process improvements that increase throughput and consistency

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in business management or related field preferred
• 3+ years relevant music industry experience, with a focus on sync licensing and asset clearances
• Strong understanding of music and IP rights
• Excellent written and oral communication skills
• Experience with project coordinating and management
• Experience with Monday.com, or a similar project management software
• Demonstrated ability to work with minimal day-to-day direction, applying independent judgment to move work forward and escalate only when needed
• Experience supporting or conducting standard deal-term negotiations (e.g., scope of use, term, territory, fee ranges) and documenting outcomes accurately
• High attention to detail with strong documentation discipline (version control, audit-ready records, and organized contract/license repositories)
• Ability to assess issues of moderate complexity (incomplete rights info, competing deadlines, non-standard use cases) and propose practical resolution paths
• Comfort working with senior internal stakeholders and external partners (labels/publishers) in a fast-moving environment with shifting priorities
• Experience with automation and/or AI tools such as chatGPT, Gemini, etc.

Qualifications

• Must have legal right to work in the U.S.