Nicki Minaj just won a major fight for streaming that will change the music industry

[Power Bottom]

You must be registered for see images

Streaming just won another victory in the music industry, and it'll make some artists very happy.

Until now, if a musician went platinum, that certification was based purely on sales, both physical and digital. It didn't matter how many times a record was listened to on Spotify or Apple Music.

But on Monday, the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) announced that it would be modernizing its gold and platinum certification process for albums, which will include both on-demand audio and video streams.

In the new methodology, 1,500 streams will count as the equivalent of 10 track sales or 1 album sale.

This means that the RIAA is retroactively awarding 17 different album titles with gold or platinum certifications. Among the newly platinum albums: Kendrick Lamar's "To Pimp a Butterfly," Hozier's self-titled album, and Coldplay's "Ghost Stories."

You must be registered for see links

Legend. She did something really good for the industry. This is the future of music.
​

 

[Ōkami]

I don't see any mention of her. So how did she help exactly?

Also, calling her an artist? Making a lot of exaggerations here.

 

[Power Bottom]

I don't see any mention of her. So how did she help exactly?

Also, calling her an artist? Making a lot of exaggerations here.

The whole article is about her :|. And yes she is a artist. Just because you don't like her music doesn't change the fact

Nicki Minaj has been one of the most vocal proponents of counting streaming toward an artist's sales and certifications. And she had court dates about changing how albums get certified. She made this come true.

She got the courts to rule in the favor of getting streams counted to an artist album sales.

 

[Punk Hazard]

This is quite a major change...in terms of labeling. A year ago, an artist with 300,000 sales and 100,000 streams on Spotify or whatever would have made a certain amount of money. Take those numbers and apply it to today, aaaaand...they would have made the same amount of money. This change is purely cosmetic. It's not like recognizing revenue gained outside of just album sales actually does anything for the actual figure of revenue. Okay, so now Nicki is triple platinum certified by fully counting revenue. Does this actually do anything to increase her revenue? Does it do so for any other artist? Unless artists receive some kind of extra compensation proportionate to the RIAA certification, this is a pretty useless change.

I don't see any mention of her. So how did she help exactly?

Also, calling her an artist? Making a lot of exaggerations here.

That'll happen when you only read a snippet of the full story.

You must be registered for see images

 

[DominiqueX]

Well, I highly dislike her as a person, but I guess that' a good thing for the artists.

 

[Troyg39]

I thought Billboard already counted streaming in a similar fashion. I was reading the other day there was a controversy between RIAA and Billboard over Rihanna's "Anti" platinum status. The idea was free albums aren't counted by Billboard as sales because they don't meet the $3.49 minimum album sale limit, even though they count streaming listens, youtube clicks, etc..something about how artists are paid some royalties for these things too but not so much for the albums that are bought third party (she had a $25million Samsung deal to give free albums)

 

[Power Bottom]

I thought Billboard already counted streaming in a similar fashion. I was reading the other day there was a controversy between RIAA and Billboard over Rihanna's "Anti" platinum status. The idea was free albums aren't counted by Billboard as sales because they don't meet the $3.49 minimum album sale limit, even though they count streaming listens, youtube clicks, etc..something about how artists are paid some royalties for these things too but not so much for the albums that are bought third party (she had a $25million Samsung deal to give free albums)

Anti was platinum the day rihanna signed that endorsement contract with Samsung lol. Samsung is the retailer and they brought 1 million copies of her album. 1 million people were given the chance to download the album for free but it was prepaid already. Billboard didn't count that in their irrelevant opinion as "platinum". But the certification is still there.

Billboard can't give out certifications. They only show chart performance

This is quite a major change...in terms of labeling. A year ago, an artist with 300,000 sales and 100,000 streams on Spotify or whatever would have made a certain amount of money. Take those numbers and apply it to today, aaaaand...they would have made the same amount of money. This change is purely cosmetic. It's not like recognizing revenue gained outside of just album sales actually does anything for the actual figure of revenue. Okay, so now Nicki is triple platinum certified by fully counting revenue. Does this actually do anything to increase her revenue? Does it do so for any other artist? Unless artists receive some kind of extra compensation proportionate to the RIAA certification, this is a pretty useless change.


That'll happen when you only read a snippet of the full story.

You must be registered for see images

yes it it gives out certifications based on streams and sales towards albums which is huge. The market is very low in terms of people actually buying albums. This is the digital age people stream things or illegally download instead buying. So artist getting these well deserved certifications is huge. Most artists can't even go gold. Back in the day it was a lot easier to go platinum because of people actually brought things. Now streams are a must.

Most artists now make most of their money off of singles and tour

 

[Troyg39]

Anti was platinum the day rihanna signed that endorsement contract with Samsung lol. Samsung is the retailer and they brought 1 million copies of her album. 1 million people were given the chance to download the album for free but it was prepaid already. Billboard didn't count that in their irrelevant opinion as "platinum". But the certification is still there.

Billboard can't give out certifications. They only show chart performance

Oh ok yea I know how the Samsung deal worked it was like to $5 million MCHG-Samsung inked with Jay a few years ago. I remember that's what made RIAA change their process to include those kind of deals.

I just didn't know Billboard's "certification" didn't bear any weight because I remember when Jay inked his deal Billboard tried to raise the same flags. They made such a fuss it made it seem as if there were too certification groups or something which I thought was odd because until then I'd never heard of Billboard's album status input being such a big deal. I knew RIAA was the one that represented the major labels so I couldn't figure out why Billboard's input was suddenly so important. I thought they could give out certifications too now and I just didn't know it.

And I didn't know RIAA didn't count streaming up until now I would've thought they would've done so a while ago. I'm glad they're changing up especially with the way the industry has gone to streaming and physical copies are selling less and less anyway. Hopefully artists can start to negotiate better deals around the new change too. Streams are more frequent than downloads now it should be good if artists can work out a better royalty system. They've been getting the short end of the stick for the longest now

 

[Punk Hazard]

Anti was platinum the day rihanna signed that endorsement contract with Samsung lol. Samsung is the retailer and they brought 1 million copies of her album. 1 million people were given the chance to download the album for free but it was prepaid already. Billboard didn't count that in their irrelevant opinion as "platinum". But the certification is still there.

Billboard can't give out certifications. They only show chart performance




yes it it gives out certifications based on streams and sales towards albums which is huge. The market is very low in terms of people actually buying albums. This is the digital age people stream things or illegally download instead buying. So artist getting these well deserved certifications is huge. Most artists can't even go gold. Back in the day it was a lot easier to go platinum because of people actually brought things. Now streams are a must.

Most artists now make most of their money off of singles and tour

Okay but do these certifications do anything that isn't cosmetic? If it's just a certification, then it's worth no more than a piece of scrapbook paper showing you how much money you already made.

 

[~Ethereal~]

Interesting.

 

[Illuminater]

Haters can go **** themselves, worthless hypocrites.
Also this is great. It will benefit pretty much anyone. We live in a new age where streams should count because most people don't buy buy albums and just snatch it off the internet. I gurantee dc4 will go gold+ if it was for sale...

 

[Punk Hazard]

Haters can go **** themselves, worthless hypocrites.
Also this is great. It will benefit pretty much anyone. We live in a new age where streams should count because most people don't buy buy albums and just snatch it off the internet. I gurantee dc4 will go gold+ if it was for sale...

But...how does this benefit them? It's basically the RIAA saying "This is how much money you made." Unless hitting platinum or gold or whatever gives you something extra, there is no fundamental benefit. I know I'm saying this a lot, but I genuinely don't get what benefit this gives.

 

[Illuminater]

But...how does this benefit them? It's basically the RIAA saying "This is how much money you made." Unless hitting platinum or gold or whatever gives you something extra, there is no fundamental benefit. I know I'm saying this a lot, but I genuinely don't get what benefit this gives.

An artist could use those achievements on his career. You know how good it looks to have platinums and golds on your resume? That's what companies are looking for. For example, if you have a record deal company would you sign Nicki Minaj or some no name black chick? Exactly. It brings a lot of benefits.

 

[Punk Hazard]

An artist could use those achievements on his career. You know how good it looks to have platinums and golds on your resume? That's what companies are looking for. For example, if you have a record deal company would you sign Nicki Minaj or some no name black chick? Exactly. It brings a lot of benefits.

And how does "I went platinum" different fundamentally from "My album made 10 million dollars"?

 

[Illuminater]

Albums go gold or platinum or diamond. That's an accomplishment.

 

[Power Bottom]

Oh ok yea I know how the Samsung deal worked it was like to $5 million MCHG-Samsung inked with Jay a few years ago. I remember that's what made RIAA change their process to include those kind of deals.

I just didn't know Billboard's "certification" didn't bear any weight because I remember when Jay inked his deal Billboard tried to raise the same flags. They made such a fuss it made it seem as if there were too certification groups or something which I thought was odd because until then I'd never heard of Billboard's album status input being such a big deal. I knew RIAA was the one that represented the major labels so I couldn't figure out why Billboard's input was suddenly so important. I thought they could give out certifications too now and I just didn't know it.

And I didn't know RIAA didn't count streaming up until now I would've thought they would've done so a while ago. I'm glad they're changing up especially with the way the industry has gone to streaming and physical copies are selling less and less anyway. Hopefully artists can start to negotiate better deals around the new change too. Streams are more frequent than downloads now it should be good if artists can work out a better royalty system. They've been getting the short end of the stick for the longest now

The reason Billboard input is so impactful is because it is very recognized and majority of people in the USA and other countries use it to keep up with the charts. Billboard keeps track of album sales, single,album chart performances and etc. Most of the times for big artists like rihannna Billboard would keep track of sales and they will tell the first week sales or when it crossed gold/platinum. So when Billboard came out and said Anti isn't platinum which it is it became headlines.


I am happy Nicki was able to do this for the industry. This should have been done since 2013 tbh. Streams is the future.

Okay but do these certifications do anything that isn't cosmetic? If it's just a certification, then it's worth no more than a piece of scrapbook paper showing you how much money you already made.

Certifications are for artists to show what they accomplished in their career. (like Grammies, Oscars and etc) A lot of artists like Nicki Minaj, Coldplay, Drake, Kendrick, Selena and more release their albums on Spotify. That is free music being taken away from the artist. And they are not getting anything out of it besides people saying "haha your album flopped" "Your sales suck" When they are the main people streaming it for free and not buying. Allowing streams to go in album certifications give justice to the artist's work. Which is what Nicki was fighting for. I am sure if we were artists and we had low album sales but high streams and none of that counted towards our sales/certs. We would be mad.

 

[Punk Hazard]

Albums go gold or platinum or diamond. That's an accomplishment.

That is true. The accomplishment is that you sold units. Going gold, platinum, or diamond are just titles. They are cosmetic and fundamentally useless. Selling enough units to make $10 million and selling enough units to make $10 million and it being called platinum is still just selling enough units to make $10 million. Take away the RIAA labeling them with gold, platinum, or diamond, and the accomplishment is still there.

 

[Illuminater]

That is true. The accomplishment is that you sold units. Going gold, platinum, or diamond are just titles. They are cosmetic and fundamentally useless. Selling enough units to make $10 million and selling enough units to make $10 million and it being called platinum is still just selling enough units to make $10 million. Take away the RIAA labeling them with gold, platinum, or diamond, and the accomplishment is still there.

That's like saying a college degree is useless. Those "titles" open up so many doors for an artist and allows you to take your career to another level. It also affects the way people view you and think of you. It attracts fans.

You think I would treat you differently if you had a diamond album? Of course I would.

 

[Punk Hazard]

The reason Billboard input is so impact is because it is very recognized and majority of people in the USA and other countries use it to keep up with the charts. Billboard keeps track of album sales, single,album chart performances and etc. Most of the times for big artists like rihannna Billboard would keep track of sales and they will tell the first week sales or when it crossed gold/platinum. So when Billboard came out and said Anti isn't platinum which it is it became headlines.


I am happy Nicki was able to do this for the industry. This should have been done since 2013 tbh. Streams is the future.



Certifications are for artists to show what they accomplished in their career. (like Grammies, Oscars and etc) A lot of artists like Nicki Minaj, Coldplay, Drake, Kendrick, Selena and more release their albums on Spotify. That is free music being taken away from the artist. And they are not getting anything out of it besides people saying "haha your album flopped" "Your sales suck" When they are the main people streaming it for free and not buying. Allowing streams to go in album certifications give justice to the artist's work. Which is what Nicki was fighting for. I am sure if we were artists and we had low album sales but high streams and none of that counted towards our sales. We would be mad.

That actually diminishes whatever worth labels like platinum had to begin with. If Spotify is free, and generates no revenue for the artist, then what you're essentially saying is "Before, you needed to make a certain amount of money to be certified platinum. Now, you don't need to make as much money." The monetary value associated with going platinum has now decreased.

If people are dismissing Spotify views as not being as legitimate as album sales, then this is banking on people viewing the views as legitimate due to being associated with going platinum. The problem is the result can just as easily turn out to be people viewing going platinum as less legitimate instead due to being associated with Spotify views, which they are already dismissing. That can actually be detrimental to going platinum because then you'll have people going "Back in my day, you needed to make this much money and sell this many units to go platinum. Now, you can get it even if your album is flopping, there's no value now."

 

[Punk Hazard]

That's like saying a college degree is useless. Those "titles" open up so many doors for an artist and allows you to take your career to another level. It also affects the way people view you and think of you. It attracts fans.

I thought about this, and it's actually not the same thing. A degree shows you are qualified for whatever you studied. What's comparable to a degree isn't the RIAA certification, but the sale numbers, that's what qualifies your album as "successful."

You think I would treat you differently if you had a diamond album? Of course I would.]

And if the title diamond didn't exist, would you treat the album differently if people just said it sold 10,000,000 units?