Happy Friday!

If you’ve thought about sync licensing as an income stream, there’s a good chance you’re focused on the wrong problem.

Chris SD, founder of Sync Songwriter, has spent years building direct relationships with music supervisors — the gatekeepers who decide what music goes into film, TV, and advertising. Two of his students recently had five songs placed in Anora, the film that won multiple Oscars in 2025.

Three insights from our conversation

1. Sync Libraries Are a Lottery Without Relationships
Libraries now hold hundreds of thousands of tracks. Submitting to them without a supervisor relationship is like entering a draw — your odds aren’t zero, but they’re not a strategy either. The artists who consistently land placements aren’t submitting more; they’re connected to people who trust them. Chris spent years doing the unglamorous work of building those connections — and now extends them directly to his students.

2. Write for Your Fans, Not for Sync
Music supervisors are looking for authenticity. Artists who reverse the process — writing specifically for placement opportunities — often end up with music that sounds calculated and doesn’t connect. Chris’s advice: do what you love, then look for the opportunities. The Anora placements happened because the music was right for the project, not because it was engineered to be sync-friendly.

3. AI’s Threat to Sync Income Is More Limited Than You Think
AI’s inroads to the sync market are happening at the bottom. Copyright remains a significant legal barrier for AI-generated music, and there’s a second issue that may matter just as much: audiences don’t want to feel like a computer is singing to them. Chris and I agreed that some creators are more enthusiastic about AI than their listeners are.

🎧 Listen to Episode 348: Why Sync Licensing Is a Relationship Business – with Chris SD of Sync Songwriter​

Want the implementation frameworks?

The episode companion edition of Liner Notes Insider will include resources to help you act on what Chris shared — including a sync-readiness checklist, a music supervisor relationship-building framework, and a pitch preparation guide.

If you’re not yet a Liner Notes subscriber, the free edition covers highlights from this and 300+ conversations: Get the free Liner Notes edition.

Liner Notes Insider gets you the complete frameworks: Join Liner Notes Insider.

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