What are CD Baby's cover artwork guidelines for digital distribution?

If you have purchased our CD Baby Distribution Bundle, we will digitally transfer your cover artwork to CD Baby.

The information shown on your cover artwork must match the Artist Name and Album Title provided to CD Baby for distribution purposes. For example, if your Artist Name appears on the cover artwork as "Chris Robley & the Fear of Heights," the same exact Artist Name must appear in your album details. Any discrepancies could cause confusion for customers, or introduce delays with your release.

CD Baby's digital partners' artwork guidelines do not allow the attributes listed below. If your cover artwork includes any of the following, your artwork will need to be modified prior to distribution:

  • Website URL
  • Social network symbols or information (i.e., Facebook links, Twitter handles, etc).
  • Contact information (i.e., email addresses, phone number).
  • Pornographic images
  • Pricing information
  • Copyrighted images
  • Scan of a CD (it must be retail-ready artwork).
  • UPC barcodes
  • The cover art refers to physical or digital versions of the album (i.e., CD, Disc, Digital Exclusive, Digital Version, etc).
  • The cover image is blurry, pixilated or has other quality issues.
  • The cover art promises content that the album doesn't contain (i.e., "includes DVD", "includes free stickers", etc)
  • The cover art up-sells to another product (i.e., merch, other albums by same artist, etc)
  • The cover art claims to be an exclusive of one of our digital partners without their permission (i.e., iTunes™ Exclusive, Only on Amazon Music, etc).
  • Graphic depictions of violence or gore
  • The word "new" or any time-sensitive reference cannot be included.

CD Baby also has specific guidelines that must be followed for Tribute and Karaoke releases.

For more information about CD Baby's artwork guidelines, visit CD Baby's Help Center.