After reading about McFly's deal with the Mail on Sunday I decided to look at the cost of the covermount deal. I reckon that the Mail on Sunday will pay 0.2 million pounds on mechanicals, perhaps another 0.2 million on royalties, 0.2 million on the CDs (figures might be wrong here so if you know please correct me).
Let's just say that it costs them 0.6 million to launch. With 2.5 million copies sold at 1.50 plus the McFly fanbase, curious buyer, naysayers, rival journalists etc etc they probably sold an extra couple of hundred thousand papers. They may also get more advertisers on board as well and make a nice profit out of it.

McFly get a 500,000 "advance" royalties equivalent of around 50,000 albums which they would have probably sold anyway plus an additional 75,000 deluxe premium album in september.

Ok pardon my maths and if I am wrong please correct me. Whichever way I look at this, covermounts may be a steal in terms of marketing and how long before The Sun, Mirror, Smash Hits etc all follow suit as they cannot possibly go wrong here. Or am I missing something ?

Cover mount has always been terrific for papers (movies and music) but the short term benefit has been damaging to music as fans suddenly start thinking music has no value - they pay the same for a few pence for a paper so why bother to shell out more in a record shop?

This has been one of the killers of music. But, again, great for papers and magazines and a nice quick fix for the copyright owners.

It depends JK. I remember the mix tapes I got from DJ magazine which I really enjoyed buying. Even paying an extra pound for it. I bought many CDs as a result of the covermount. Also in McFly's case they will do a deluxe album so the fans will buy it all over again.

Also if you get paid a million to give your album free to 2.5 million people and for only one day. Would you
a: turn it down
b: take the money and run.

I know what I would do.

take the money and run

Covermounts and (most of the) other "new" marketing ideas make perfect sense for some (already established) artists - at least in the short term.

But in the longer term JK is correct: fans (formerly known as buyers) come to expect their music for free.

And whatever positive effects covermounts have for the papers: these effect will diminish if covermounts become more common.