The huge, silent problem in Sync.

The sync industry wasn’t built for artists.

It was built for middlemen.

For agents and “connections.”
For people who say trust me while the money quietly disappears.

It sounds charming – handshakes, favors, coffee meetings – hell, even free drinks!
Until you realize it’s also built on confusion, bad contracts, and missing payments.

That’s the industry I walked into.

I learned the hard way.

I landed a placement for over $20,000. A Marriott Ad.
I got less than 10%, a year late. Of that, I had to pay my team.

My “connection” took the rest.

When I asked around, everyone said,
“Yeah that happens. You gotta find the right people next time.”

It shouldn’t be.

If “finding the right people” is the only protection an artist has,
the system isn’t broken – it’s the problem.

So I built something different.

Not a startup idea.
Just a boring fix to something I was really pissed off about.

A place where artists don’t have to gamble on trust.
Where libraries don’t have to wonder if a track is cleared.
Where fairness is baked in, not promised after the fact.

That became That Pitch.

I couldn’t find the tools I needed.

I needed a way to check for samples – not whole songs like Shazam,
but the little sounds that cause the big legal problems.

Nothing existed.
So we built Cleared.

It scans every track before it’s ever pitched.
It knows every single sample in every song (100+ million songs).
If something isn’t right, we know.

Super complicated up front.
Drained my whole bank account.
But now? Simple. Predictable. Peace of mind.
Not a single copyright infringement 100s of thousands of placements later.

I keep things boring on purpose.

Every artist and library verifies who they are.
Payments are automatic, transparent, traceable.
Libraries get vetted before they’re allowed in.
And behind the scenes, dozens of quiet checks keep bad actors out.

No fireworks.
Just fairness that works.

We’re not chasing growth.

Most platforms chase numbers.
More users. More uploads. More “scale.” A big exit!

I chase trust.

That means slower. More deliberate. Doing the right thing, all the time, for a long time.

And that’s fine with me.

Because the alternative is the same chaos everyone else calls “the business.”

This is the line.

We are a partner with the Music Fights Fraud Alliance.
We built Cleared to keep samples clean.
We built a 37-part process within That Pitch that deters bad actors.
We have thorough due diligence for every library partner that we work with.
We use Trolley to make sure money lands where it should.

None of this is revolutionary.
It’s just how things should work.

The sync industry doesn’t have to be fixed with handshakes and luck.

So I stopped waiting for someone else to fix it.
And built something better.

Mark Eckert (I built this thing!)