Using Friends Barcode for My Music CD

mr dave · 01-19-2013, 07:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mmatthew

I am about to release my college bands CD and want to add a barcode to it. One of my friend who has already released his album told me to print his barcode of my CD Cover. I wanted to know if it is legal and can there be any confusion associated with doing this?

Do you just want an image of a bar code as the cover art for the album?

Otherwise your friend is either kind of an idiot, or kind of a dick, or kind of both.

Richtom is right, the point of the bar code is for tracking sales and associated information. If your friend released a commercial disc and you just print the bar code onto your album then put it up for sale, all you're really going to do is increase HIS sales numbers and increase HIS royalty cheque.

Depending on where you live you'll want to get in touch with some form of musician's union or songwriter's association like ASCAP or SOCAN, they'll be able to better answer your questions on how to properly release a commercial disc and protect your material.