Downloading Music

If someone downloads an individual track (e.g. "Suspicious Minds") it counts as one sale for the "single" or "tracks" Suspicious Minds - regardless of whatever version was chosen (i.e. a live version, a remix, a remastered version, an extended version, etc.), and regardless of whatever source that person chose from (ie it doesn't matter which particular Elvis album it was chosen from, or if it was instead chosen from a compilation of hits from the 1960s, for example). Every single-track download of any version of "Suspicious Minds" credited to Elvis counts as one sale, and is added to the running total. If total sales in any particular week are high enough, "Suspicious Minds" will appear in the UK charts (assuming you're in the UK) - though a sale of well over 1,000 copies is presently needed to have any chance of coming within shouting range of the Top 200.

For a downloaded album to count as a sale of an album, equivalent to the sale of a CD, then the album must be bought in its entirety in one go. If, instead, someone buys each track individually in separate transactions, then instead of counting as sale of 1 album, it instead counts as 1 sale of each individual track (i.e. the purchaser has bought 10 "singles" rather than 1 album). It's unlikely that people would do this, though, as it's usually cheaper to buy an album as an album, rather than buying each track separately.

For information.

Brian ;)