RIAA updates their Gold and Platinum program award rule due to Jay-Z's Samsung deal

[Newark88]

Counting Digital Singles and Digital Albums for G&P: A Common Sense Update

July 01, 2013

By now, many of us in the music business, as well as Jay-Z fans, know that Samsung has purchased one million “Magna Carta Holy Grail” digital albums to be given away to the phone maker’s customers. It is a novel and creative marketing move and it has rightly stimulated a healthy conversation about the sale’s meaning and implications for the modern music business.

For us, the move prompted a re-examination of our historic Gold & Platinum (G&P) Program award rules. As we dug through the records of audits, re-reviewed rules and consulted with our auditing firm of more than thirty years, Gelfand, Rennert & Feldman, we discovered one rule disparity that no longer makes sense.

One of our program’s requirements is that an album can become eligible for certification 30 days after release date. (There are other rules, of course – such as requiring that the price of the album meet certain requirements.) The 30-day rule exists to take into account potential returns of physical product – CDs, cassettes, vinyl, etc. that could be shipped to brick and mortar retailers and returned, in which case our auditors do not count the sales.



When we first created the Digital Single Award in 2004, we elected not to impose any 30-day rule because there are very few digital returns. According to our auditing firm, digital returns on average account for less than two percent of sales included in reports provided by the labels for certification – most digital retailer Terms of Use/Service allow users to return products only under limited circumstances.

Also at the time in 2004, sales of digital albums were virtually non-existent and accounted for a small fraction of overall digital sales. Fast forward a decade and that’s obviously no longer the case.

We think it’s time for the RIAA – and Gelfand, Rennert & Feldman – to align our digital song and album certification requirements. That’s why today we are officially updating this rule in our G&P Program requirements. Going forward, sales of albums in digital format will become eligible on the release date, while sales of albums in physical format will still become eligible for certification 30 days after the release date.

Not only do we believe it’s sensible and logical to align digital album rules with those we have maintained for digital singles since the program’s inception, we also consider today’s move in line with our larger efforts to modernize the G&P Program to reflect the new music marketplace. In May we announced the integration of on-demand streams to the program to more broadly recognize online demand for songs.

The reality is that how fans consume music is changing, the music business is changing as labels and artists partner with a breathtaking array of new technology services, and the industry’s premier award recognizing artists’ commercial achievement should similarly keep pace. In short, we’re continuing to move the 55-year-old program forward and it’s a good day when music sales diversification and innovative strategies meet the RIAA’s time-tested, gold standard requisites for certification.

Liz Kennedy
Director, Communications and Gold & Platinum Program, RIAA

RIAA - Recording Industry Association of America - July 01, 2013

 

[2manyFCKNrappers]

chains is cool to cop but more important is lawyer fees...

 

[swerve]

yeah... the coli dont see it that way

 

[DStyles]

Only the GOAT can influence the RIAA to make changes


He's already platinum before the album even drops

 

[desp]

#NewRules

 

[Feed-Me]

 

[Lana Kane]

Very interesting, I guess money talks.

 

[bangedher_wholesquad]

He shouldn't be goat.

Thia coming from a former jay Stan.

Doctoring ways to go plat first week.

I hope everyone downloads and doesn't buy.

Guess marketing is more important than music.

Thanks for the stagnation. Jay.

 

[Da King]

Going plat now officially means shyt, LOL @ some billion dollar company buying platinum plaques for artists now


Watch anther company buy 2-3 mill copies of another artist, and then 10 mil.....

 

[Long Live The Kane]

I don't think this changes anything far as the million copies Samsung bought not counting towards charts goes...it only states that Jay's album made them rethink their digital policy as a whole and now digital albums that actually do count can be certified before the 30-day rule that physical copies abide by...

 

[Bigbigguy]

Other rappers actually sold a million camel had to make a deal with a company to join the club :waynehah:

 

[Prolific_1011]

This is no less disgusting than buying your own records.

 

[Poetical Poltergeist]

Who cares.

Is the album dope?

 

[swerve]

Other rappers actually sold a million camel had to make a deal with a company to join the club :waynehah:

This is exactly how it will be seen. This is actually an L for the jigger

This is no less disgusting than buying your own records.

which Jay is known for doing

 

[CashmereThoughts]

Other rappers actually sold a million camel had to make a deal with a company to join the club :waynehah:

Like everyone of his other albums haven't sold AT least one million.