Ip Counsel, Japan - Content Legal

Full Time Job
Netflix is changing the way more than 204 million subscribers around the world enjoy entertainment. As a company, we challenge industry norms by challenging one another to think creatively about challenging problems. Our content legal team is no exception. We think critically about the range of legal issues that face our productions. We act in a manner consistent with our business culture of freedom and responsibility, one marked by a bias toward action, leaning into smart risks, and taking ownership of bold decisions.

The Opportunity:

For Japan, our legal team is searching for an IP lawyer to handle a wide range of legal issues that arise from the creation, streaming, and marketing of our original and licensed content. The candidate will advise on copyright issues, chain-of-title clearances, content production clearance, rights enforcement, claims handling, moral rights issues, and defamation claims. The role is uniquely exciting and challenging. It requires passion and curiosity for domestic and international business and creative matters and the corresponding legal considerations that govern them. This role will closely collaborate with the creative, licensing, business affairs, production, content strategy, public policy, communication, marketing, litigation, and licensing teams that work together to create Netflix's great content.

As IP Counsel, the candidate will have intellectual property experience and expertise, enabling them to impact any situation that may be encountered. In their role, the successful candidate will:
• Collaborate with creative and business and legal affairs teams to acquire and develop IP, then shepherd it through production and distribution.
• Help analyze trademark clearances, including multi-jurisdiction searches, in collaboration with the trademark team.
• Manage intellectual property claims in a pre-litigation stage.
• Collaborate with litigation and public policy teams for litigation and regulatory work that involves IP issues.
• Rapidly respond to production clearance issues and queries of the production houses and the creative team.
• Develop and implement production clearance strategies for Japanese content.
• Conduct chain of title review for complex rights acquisition and provide concise and pragmatic analysis.
• Negotiate and draft license agreements, release forms, and other contracts for a wide variety of production materials.
• Collaborate with the marketing legal team to advise on IP-related issues in marketing and promotional content.
• Work on creating innovative workflows/projects between IP and other teams to drive efficiency.

Candidates must:
• Thrive in a fast-paced, collaborative environment, possess a high level of intellectual curiosity, focus on generating results, be comfortable evaluating risk with imperfect information, have the confidence to make quick decisions, and exhibit the highest personal and professional standards integrity and ethics.
• Be self-motivated, disciplined, highly organized, and able to prioritize multiple tasks.
• Understand and align with our unique business culture.
• Possess strong written communication skills, with a passion for drafting language that is clear, precise, thoughtful, direct, and refined.
• Exhibit strong analytical capabilities and judgment, even when the rules are unclear, and the issues are of the first impression.
• A law degree and a minimum of ten (10) years of experience as a practicing attorney (in-house or registered attorney, with bar qualification and common-law jurisdiction preferred.
• Experience with Japanese intellectual property law, including concerning copyright, trademark, and litigation related to IP matters in Japan.
• Fluency in Japanese and English.

The successful candidate will know or be passionate about learning, the entertainment and media industry generally, and the production of film and television content more precisely. They will understand, or have the ability to learn and manage, the nuanced dynamics among showrunners, executive producers, line producers, finance, post-production, marketing and creative, and how to align the appropriate teams when IP issues arise.

Netflix Japan will not accept unsolicited resumes or applications from recruitment agencies, and we will not be responsible for any related fees.

Please do not forward resumes to our career page or employees.