Lawyers are infamous for having jobs that are hard to understand. There’s a reason why “legalese” is a term, after all.
But Annie Lin, the senior counsel at music licensing and distribution platform startup Loudr, is part of a rare breed: She is an attorney who can both function at the highest level of her field and happily try to explain what she does on a day-to-day basis in a way that the rest of us non-Esquires can understand. So it was a pleasure to stop by Loudr’s San Francisco headquarters and learn about her work life for our Inside Jobs video series.
Before Annie Lin embarked on a legal career, she made her name as a singer-songwriter, touring the United States and recording albums that garnered favorable reviews from the likes of the Village Voice. But as she says in the video embedded above, she always had a real knack for the business side of the music world. So she headed to law school, and set her sights on specializing in the field of music licensing.
If you’ve ever wondered who in the world actually reads those long Terms of Service documents, look no further: That’s what Annie Lin does for a living. And as she told me, she actually loves doing it, especially when it deals with the music industry and digital rights:
“I read a lot of agreements. I read a lot of agreements. Footnotes and fine print, I am actually looking at that. You know, I just find it to be so fascinating.
I love finding out who played with who, who wrote music with who, who controls this song. And then what mergers and acquisitions have happened to lead this song to ending up in some, you know, some vault at Warner. How did that happen? That’s really fascinating to me.”
For Lin, Loudr brings all of her interests together in one place, and has her surrounded by coworkers who are similarly passionate about music. It’s a pretty cool story of landing a unique “dream job” that can happen nowadays in the startup world — with a mix of a lot of luck, and a lot of determination.
Learn about Annie’s job in the video embedded above.
Inside Jobs is a 12 episode miniseries from TechCrunch TV airing weekly on Mondays from March 24 through June 9 that gives an in-depth look at people in the job roles that really make the tech industry tick. Last week’s episode of Inside Jobs profiled mobile app designer and developer Danilo Campos.
Producing, shooting, editing, sound, and lighting for Inside Jobs is done by John Murillo. Production coordination and creative direction is done by Felicia Williams. Original logo design by Bryce Durbin. Motion graphics and graphic design by Eden Soto.
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