Music is Universal.
It’s the passionate and dedicated team at Universal Music who help make us the world’s leading music company. From A&R to finance, legal to digital, sales to marketing, Universal Music is the place to grow and develop your career within a truly commercial and innovative business that leads in everything it does.
Everyone is welcome to apply for our roles, and we are determined to ensure that no applicant or employee receives less favourable treatment because of gender, race, disability, sexual orientation, religion, belief, age, marital status, background, pregnancy, or caring responsibilities. We also recognise the importance of diversity of thought within our teams and are fully committed to embracing the talents of people with autism, dyslexia, ADHD, and other forms of neurocognitive variation.
We will always seek to make appropriate adjustments to recruitment, workplaces, and work processes to be fully inclusive to people with different needs and working styles. If you need us to make any reasonable adjustments for you from application onwards, including alternatives to the online form or to disclose a neurocognitive condition, please email UniversalMusicCareers@umusic.com.
The A Side: A Day in The Life
This role, which is within the Legal & Business Affairs team at UMPG UK, will be supporting the Head of Sampling & Infringements in all aspects of sample clearance, including dealing with requests from third parties to use songs from UMPG’s worldwide catalogue and also helping UMPG UK signed writers to clear samples of songs controlled by other publishers or third parties. The role will also involve assisting in copyright infringement claims.
The B Side: Skills & Experience
Be collaborative
- Assist in all enquiries to sample, interpolate and adapt UMPG repertoire
- Assist UMPG UK signed writers with clearances of third party repertoire
- Liaise with all internal departments inc. Legal & Business Affairs, A&R, Finance, Synch, Copyright, Royalties, Production Music and Marketing where needed
- Liaise with external parties and approval parties as required and assist with negotiating clearances for all sample and adaptation requests containing UMPG UK repertoire, ensuring best terms for writers
- Provide support with the investigation of unauthorised sample and infringement uses
- Cover ad hoc duties, holidays/absences and project based work as directed by the Head of Sampling & Infringements or the VP, Legal & Business Affairs
- Assist in preparation of ‘newsletter’ of notable current and recent sample uses and updates to internal departments
Be organised
- Evaluate music usage in requests by researching and obtaining recordings, copyright information and additional details
- Digitally filing all documents relating to each clearance/case
- Handling general queries raised by clients, affiliated companies, third parties and collection societies on sample uses, songs, writer splits and label copy/credits. This will involve both phone work and written responses and will range from simple ownership enquiries through to more complex investigations
- Help to maintain Sample Clearance spreadsheet and Contentious Issues spreadsheet.
- Tracking releases of sampled repertoire
Person specification
Necessary
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
- Exceptional organisational skills, ability to multi-task and manage multiple work streams at once whilst ensuring deadlines are met
- Excellent attention to detail
- Good working knowledge of Microsoft office suite (or similar)
- A passion for music and knowledge in wide variety of styles and genuine interest in the music industry and sampling
- A basic understanding of music publishing, copyright, sample clearance and associated terminology
- Flexible, professional and enthusiastic approach, always appropriate to being in the Legal & Business Affairs team
- Motivated and proactive, able to juggle priorities in an evolving environment often under pressure
- A team player but with the ability to use initiative when required and work independently
Desirable
- Music /Media industry experience, particularly music publishing, licensing, copyright, legal, synch/sample clearance
- Experience in a client facing role /used to dealing with wide variety of professionals
- Experience of ‘high volume’ administrative duties in a busy and pressured office environment
Bonus tracks: your benefits
- Group Personal Pension Scheme (between 3% and 9%)
- Private Medical Insurance
- 25 paid days of annual leave
- Interest Free Season Ticket Loan
- Holiday Purchase scheme
- Dental and Travel Insurance options
- Cycle to Work Scheme
- Salary Sacrifice Cars
- Subsidised Gym Membership
- Employee Discounts (Reward Gateway)
Just so you know
The company presents this job description as a guide to the major areas and duties for which the jobholder is accountable. However, the business operates in an environment that demands change and the jobholder's specific responsibilities and activities will vary and develop. Therefore, the job description should be seen as indicative and not as a permanent, definitive, and exhaustive statement.
