CD cover for pure online distribution

[Coeamyd]

Hello community!

I'm currently designing a cd cover for a production that will be sold solely via online distribution (for now). I assume, it will not sell more than a few hundred copies. Nonetheless, I would like to know, whether or not a Standard License is enough, or if I need the extended license. There won't be any promotional material like Shirts printed with the cover, so that would also not be a reason to get the extended license.

I'm just unsure about the "500.000 copies" rule. Since the resulting digital music file will contain the cover, is it number of times the album will be sold, that cannot exceed 500.000, or is it like with fonts, where you buy "views", so if the album cover is displayed on a distributor's site (Amazon, iTunes, what have you), every view counts as a copy? If it's the latter, it's going to be virtually impossible to know, how many times the image was viewed, so I would definitely need the extended license. However, I kind of doubt that's going to be the case. It's even going to be difficult to know the actual number of copies of the music files. But, as I stated at the beginning, this is a very local production, that would be amazing, if it exceeded even 2.000 sales.

Can anyone give me some insights into which license would be best? Thanks for your help!

Cheers,

Christoph

[Brad Lawryk · Accepted solution]

CD Covers work the same as book covers. Up to a distribution of 500,000. So in the case of an electronic album you would go by sales. Having said that it is always a good idea to include the photo credits along with any other credits.

[Coeamyd]

Ok, so I should be safe using the standard license. If we ever reach 500.000 units sold, it should not be a problem to get a new license 🙂

We will definitely include the credits, although I have no idea, where they would be included in an online distribution. But, I guess we'll find a spot for it.

Thanks for your feedback!