Category: Record Labels

Rebellion Records is a rapidly growing independent music label and investment company based in Soho. We sign artists, license and acquire catalogs, and finance music rights, with an associated viral marketing agency (Short Stories Media). We move quickly and close a lot of paper. This role reports directly to the founder/CEO.
The role
You will be the lawyer in the room. The majority of your week is transactional music work: drafting, negotiating, and closing artist and catalog agreements from term sheet through execution. The rest is employment agreements, finance contracting, and the research that keeps a growing company running. This is a high-pace environment with multiple deals in motion at any given time, and you will work alongside our outside counsel, who will remain on specialist matters, but the day-to-day deal flow, employment paper, and company contracting will be yours to own.
What you'll do
• Draft and negotiate artist agreements: recording, license, participation, distribution, catalog acquisition, producer, side-artist, and feature agreements, plus sample clearances
• Run deals end to end, from term sheet to signature, including redlines against artist-side counsel and managers
• Maintain and improve our template library and deal-approval process
• Handle basic finance contracting
• Draft and negotiate employment agreements for staff and executives, plus offer letters, contractor agreements, NDAs, and IP assignment
• Manage our contract database
• Research legal and business questions as they come up (rights, chain of title, royalty and neighboring-rights issues, new markets, platform terms) and give clear, practical answers
• Coordinate and scope outside counsel so that external spend is targeted and predictable
What we're looking for
• JD and admission to the New York bar in good standing
• 3 to 6 years of transactional music or entertainment experience at a boutique or mid-size firm, a label, a distributor, or a publisher
• Demonstrated experience personally drafting and negotiating recording, license, and distribution agreements
• Experience drafting and negotiating employment agreements, including compensation and termination provisions, under New York law
• Fluency in the economics of music rights: master and publishing splits, royalty structures, recoupment, controlled composition, mechanicals, and neighboring rights
• Working knowledge of employment law basics, enough to handle offer letters, terminations, and contractor classification without escalating every question
• Comfort reading loan and investor documents and flagging what affects a deal, even if you are not the one negotiating the facility
• Thrives in a high-pace environment: quick turnarounds, shifting priorities, and multiple deals moving at once
• Self-directed and organized; you can run ten open matters without dropping any
Nice to have
• In-house experience at a label, distributor, or publisher
• Exposure to catalog acquisitions or rights-backed financing
• Familiarity with publishing administration and distribution platform agreements