Third Chair

What do they actually do

Third Chair is a tool-and-service for rights holders and their in-house legal/business-affairs teams. It scans social platforms and the open web for likely unlicensed uses of a customer’s media (music, images, creator content), gathers evidence, and automates the outreach and draft paperwork to turn those findings into licensing conversations or recoveries YC page, site.

Customers onboard their catalog (e.g., Spotify links, ISRC/ISWC/IPI, DDEX/CWR/CSV). Third Chair’s “browser agents” crawl platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and X (paid and organic) to find matches, cross-check possible license status where datasets exist, prioritize by potential impact, and collect screenshots, ad metadata, and delivery context as evidence. An outreach agent finds contacts, verifies deliverability, sends follow-ups, and a contracts agent drafts demand/licensing letters for human review. Teams can work in the web app or simply email tasks (e.g., to ask@usethirdchair.com) for a “paralegal-as-a-service” flow site, YC page.

They offer two delivery models: self-serve software for in-house teams, and a managed, outcome-based service where Third Chair handles enforcement end to end. Early customers are in media and entertainment, including labels, distributors, and rights organizations site, YC page.

Who are their target customer(s)

• In-house counsel at record labels and distributors: They spend time manually hunting unlicensed uses across social ads and the web, and can’t scale evidence collection or outreach with a small team—leading to missed licensing revenue and wasted senior lawyer time.
• Business affairs/licensing managers at music publishers and rights organizations: They struggle to quickly confirm whether a use is licensed and to prioritize which cases are worth pursuing, causing slow, error-prone checks and delayed or lost income.
• Legal/talent teams at management agencies and creator labels: They lack bandwidth to monitor ads, creator uploads, and paid placements for every client, so unauthorized uses go unnoticed or unaddressed—creating revenue leakage and reputational risk.
• Independent artists and small rights-holders (or their managers): They lack tools and legal resources to find, document, and convert unauthorized uses into paid licenses; hiring outside counsel for each case is too costly and slow.
• In-house legal or compliance teams at brands and advertisers (future expansion): They need to verify that music and creator content in ads is properly licensed and want auditable evidence to avoid liability; without streamlined monitoring, they face legal exposure and disruptive takedown disputes.

How would they acquire their first 10, 50, and 100 customers

• First 10: Founder-led, high-touch pilots using the managed service (contingency or short paid trials) for a few labels/distributors, with hands-on onboarding, verification, and outreach to secure early recoveries and convert to paid contracts YC page, site.
• First 50: Codify a repeatable 3‑month playbook (onboarding via ISRC/Spotify links, detection, outreach templates, evidence bundles) and run targeted outbound to business-affairs/in-house counsel, while establishing referral partnerships with distributors, labels, and rights orgs site.
• First 100: Launch a self-serve tier with clear onboarding and trial for small rights-holders, publish detailed case studies/how‑tos for SEO and inbound, and formalize partner channels (DSPs, distributors, PROs, management agencies) with simple referral economics; automate onboarding and email/tasking integrations YC page, site.

What is the rough total addressable market

Top-down context:

Initial focus is media and entertainment rights-holders (labels, publishers, distributors, PROs, management agencies) that run recurring enforcement and licensing workflows; expansion could include brand/advertiser compliance teams using music and creator content in ads.

Bottom-up calculation:

Wedge TAM: assume ~600 mid/large rights-holding organizations with in-house teams globally at an average $40k/year for software+service (~$24M), plus ~4,000 smaller rights-holders on a self-serve plan averaging $2k/year (~$8M). This implies an initial wedge TAM on the order of ~$30M–$40M, with upside from broader platform coverage and brand/advertiser use cases.

Assumptions:

• Counts of eligible orgs (labels, publishers, distributors, PROs, management firms) with budgets for enforcement software and services.
• Average annual contract values: ~$40k for mid/large, ~$2k for small; pricing not publicly listed.
• TAM reflects 100% penetration within the defined segments; excludes future expansion to brands/advertisers.

Who are some of their notable competitors

• Pex: Content identification and rights management infrastructure for music and UGC platforms; relevant for detection/licensing workflows in social environments.
• TuneSat: Audio fingerprinting that detects unlicensed music use on TV and online; focuses on detection and reporting that can support enforcement.
• AdRev (HAAWK): Rights management and monetization for music on UGC platforms (e.g., YouTube Content ID); adjacent to enforcement and recovery on social media.
• MUSO: Piracy measurement and takedown analytics across web domains; strong in detection and anti-piracy workflows for media companies.
• Copytrack: Image licensing enforcement and recovery service for creators and brands; demonstrates a managed, outcome-based model for IP enforcement (in visual media).