Jay-Z’s Magna Carta Holy Grail deal with Samsung has prompted the Recording Industry Association of America to change it’s digital sales policy.
Samsung is giving the first one million Samsung users free copies of the album and the question whether or not the album is already platinum even though it is not been officially released was brought up and had the Recording Industry Association of America look at their current policies Entertainment Weekly reports.
The Director of Communications and Gold & Platinum Program of the Recording Industry Association of America, Liz Kennedy, announced on June 1 the music industry is making changes to its long-standing rules MTV reports.
“We think it’s time for the RIAA . . . 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 sale of album in physical format will still become eligible for certification 30 days after the release date,” Kennedy said.
The gold and platinum certificate program originally tallied sales certifications 30-days after release dates. This rule was originally set because they looked at the number of returned physical copies in stores. Those copies are not counted in the total number of sales Kennedy said.
However Billboard is rejecting the count for their charts.
“It is in this spirit that I say it wasn’t as simple as you might think to turn down Jay-Z when he requested that we count the million albums that Samsung ‘bought’ as part of a much larger brand partnership, to give away to Samsung customers . . .Had Jay-Z and Samsung charged $3.49 – our minimum pricing threshold for a new release to count on our chars – for either the app or the album, the U.S. sales would have registered,” Billboard Editorial Director Bill Werde said in an editor’s letter.
Magna Carta Holy Grail is set for release on July 4.
Image: Wikimedia Commons
