The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) announced on February 1st that it has introduced video and audio streaming equivalents into its Album Award criteria.

Plays on streaming sites such as YouTube, Vevo, Apple Music and Spotify in the US will count towards the RIAA’s Gold & Platinum Album Awards.

According to website Music Business Worldwide "The RIAA has said that after ‘a comprehensive analysis of a variety of factors’, it has decided to introducing a new Album Award formula to count towards these Gold and Platinum awards."

for example: 1,500 on-demand audio and/or video song streams = 10 track sales = 1 album sale.

This has raised all kinds of concern from the music industry. For a more detailed analysis head over to the MBW website.