Rights Manager

Job Description

Overview

The Business and Legal Affairs department is responsible for the negotiation and drafting of all produced, commissioned and acquired content used worldwide by Discovery services whether linear or digital. It also provides all legal review services relating to the company's content from script and rough cut reviews through to media rights analysis, rights waivers and company usage requests from all lines of the company's business globally.

The VP Business and Legal Affairs Global Rights is looking for a bright and driven IP lawyer keen to step up into a management role driving the rights agenda within a fast-paced global organisation

Responsibilities
• Responsible for the management of two Rights Analysts with possible dotted line responsibility for analysts outside of the UK
• Overseeing the day to day functional operations of the rights management team
• Assisting the VP BLA Global Rights in setting the strategic direction of the rights management function
• Trouble shooting clearance issues and implementing solutions to improve accuracy of rights advice and reporting
• Analysing and advising on complex rights grants across a full range of programming agreements including production, commissioning, acquisition and talent arrangements (both union and non-union)
• Negotiating and drafting relicensing of elemental rights and other footage agreements
• Providing clearance advice for existing global Discovery services both linear and non-linear
• Providing strategic rights analysis for new business initiatives globally
• Researching, reviewing and interpreting key provisions in programming agreements and the company's rights management systems
• Advising marketing and promotion teams on content editing rights to support network, digital and social media activations across multiple platforms
• Reviewing and providing legal advice on promotional campaign footage, short form content and podcasts ensuring material (internal and third party) is compliant with copyright law, regulation and elemental rights restrictions
• Review and advise on talent agreements ensuring image and other approval rights are met and report on residuals and participations
• Analysing, recording and advising on underlying source materials for repackaged content titles including strategic risk profiling
• Implementing and maintaining an accurate process and advisory approach to rights waivers across the company's produced and commissioned content
• Working with Business and Legal Affairs to manage and maximise rights out monetization of content
• Work with Business and Legal Affairs to identify and renew content expiries
• Research, negotiate and relicense footage rights due to expire to maintain and refresh library content
• Researching and reporting of title availability for third party output arrangements
• Assisting in rights analysis to support new business development
• Performing quality control checks to ensure rights analysts are inputting and maintaining accurate data in the company's rights management systems
• Managing training of internal clients on rights systems across the global business units
• Providing necessary reporting to the business on areas such as elemental rights, repackaged titles and other programme related notifications
• Any other duties as determined by the VP Business and Legal Affairs.

Qualifications
• Bachelor's degree in Law; 3-4 years PQE intellectual property and copyright specialist
• Prior rights management, business affairs or legal experience required
• Previous experience in the entertainment industry ideally in a global organisation
• Strong IT skills and understanding of working with databases a necessity
• Experience in using Rights Logic an advantage
• Experience handling business negotiations for programming transactions particularly rights licensing
• Excellent interpersonal skills with the ability to work effectively at all levels within the company and across a matrixed organisation
• Some management experience would be preferable or a demonstrable ability to lead and influence others
• Clear and concise communicator (both oral and written) and able to summarize complex information
• Well organised with excellent attention to detail
• Ability to work in a fast-paced, deadline-driven environment on multiple projects and stay calm under pressure
• The ideal candidate will be a bright, diligent self-starter who is capable of working independently, thinks and communicates clearly, is well organized, proactive, and grasps concepts quickly

Jobcode: Reference SBJ-r0750j-3-14-130-24-42 in your application.