RIAA Changes Rules to Album Certifications
The RIAA
announced yesterday that streaming will now be included upon determining album
sales, making Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly, Big Sean's Dark Sky
Paradise, and The Weekend's Beauty Behind the Madness all certified platinum.
TDE CEO responds via Twitter "we don't stand behind the RIAA BS" and
I agree. For those of you who don't know, originally in order to qualify as
having a platinum selling album, 1 million units need to be sold. A number of
streams on an album are no where similar to how many physical copies are
bought. The
RIAA says 1,500 song or video streams will be equivalent to ten track sales or
one album sale.
Streaming
is free for the user there for if one person is a Kendrick listener, that one
person could possibly stream the album at the least 365 times in one year
without costing them a cent. Now if that same person bought the album the odds
of them repurchasing the same album are slim to none. Mathematically if about 4
people listen to a song off the album once a day for the entire year that is
now equivalent to about $20. So according to these guidelines if a little over
600 people stream or listen to a song or video once a day for a year the artist
would reach the platinum qualifications. However if over 600 people bought the
album once for $20 it would only be 12,000 sales, which doesn't scrape the
surface of a million sales. So over all this new system of certified platinum
will not show an accurate fan base, because most people listen to the music
that they're accustomed to multiple times and if they're doing it for free, it
doesn't prove how many people actually deem your music worthy enough to
purchase. I will look deeper inside the policy in order to verify this accuracy
and maybe if it's limited to a number on each user, but if it's not than
getting platinum will be a piece of cake.
This will eventually lower the value of
the certification, because of how easily accessible it is. I'm with Top Dawg
"no cheat codes to platinum." Artists are still receiving organic sales meeting
the original criteria to gain a certified platinum credit, so it’s not an
impossible task. Drake and J. Cole both was certified platinum hip hop artist
last year without counting the streams. Kendrick sold 750,000 units with his
album, so I know he would rather receive the original platinum credentials
being that he’s already close to meeting them. Now, it feels more like a fluke
win oppose to a real win. This is like when you’re in the midst of a heated
close game and you feel like you’re going to win regardless, but someone
accidentally pulls out the chord before the winner is determined. Smh I hope
the RIAA reexamines the rule and change it back to the its original; 1 million
sales equals a platinum album period.
no cheat codes 2 platinum... #TDE— dangeroo kipawaa TDE (@dangerookipawaa) February 1, 2016
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