This
past Sunday, hip-hop legend and Brooklyn-based entrepreneur Jay-Z released his highly
anticipated 12th studio album, Magna
Carta...Holy Grail on Roc Nation/Sony/Universal. Samsung purchased a
million copies of the new album to give away to the first million users to
download the new album for free via a special app on Samsung mobile devices. A
new rule set forth by the Recording Industry Association of America prevents Samsung's
giveaway from being tallied toward Billboard and SoundScan's counts but makes
Jay eligible for platinum certification immediately upon delivery. "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," states RIAA communications director Liz Kennedy. "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."
There
is mixed acclaim and criticism of this bold and unprecedented move. Some would
argue that this move is a form of data mining and the two giants are merely
capitalizing on it. There is also much debate about these copies of the new
album being free and unanswered questions are being posed about fairness of
sales. Most of us would agree that promotional material should never count
toward sales or certification. One would argue that Samsung bought the copies outright
before giving them away and somebody else may counter that every CD in a Record
Store was also bought; except the copies at a record store don't count until
the customer buys it off the shelf. Some people think that the new record
should stand alone in order to be counted. Whatever the opinion, two things are
for certain. Fans love Jay-Z's new album and Samsung may have opened a
Pandora's Box and revolutionized the rest of the music world for generations to
come.
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