I
began working at TuneCore a little over a year ago because I was
inspired by the idea that with all the seemingly negative changes in
the music industry, there were actually more opportunities than ever
for artists to pave
their own way. Earlier this week, we unveiled new sales certification
awards to recognize that with a new way of selling music, there must
also be new milestones to measure sales by. It is for this reason that
we have announced our brand new TuneCore Sales Certification Awards.
There are going to be three thresholds of songs sold via paid download to be eligible for TuneCore certification and award:
extremely cool, the most exciting thing about our first 26 awards is
that they are going to both established stars (Jay-Z, Ziggy Marley,
Jason Mraz, Public Enemy) and DIY up-and-comers (Meiko, Sky Eats
Airplane, Eric Hutchinson and Clear Voyage just to name a few).
sales certification award will be approximately 16" x 19 1/2" and made
out of single molded piece of cast resin. The album cover will be
raised and inset above the resin under framed glass. Text will be
etched on the glass to create an even deeper dimensionality.
The downloads must come from one album, not from
multiple albums. The certification is based on the total number of song
sales from that one album. (For example, if an album has 12 songs on it
and the album sells 10 times, the number of songs it has sold is 120.
The total song sales for that album will be the number of albums sold
multiplied by the number of songs on the album PLUS the number of
individual songs sold from that same album.) The sales will not be
restricted to territory but will take into account paid download sales
from around the globe.
You can view the full list of winners here.
Why Sales Awards, Why Now? by TuneCore President Jeff Price.
The world of the music industry is changing and recognition of these changes needs to occur.
As I write this, the RIAA is the one self-appointed entity in the
United States that certifies and issues Gold and Platinum records.
Currently, to be eligible for the opportunity to have the RIAA issue a
Gold/Platinum record, an album, single etc has to have shipped (not
sold) 500,000 or 1,000,000 copies. With other options available for
global distribution outside of the RIAA members, there are new
milestones for success, new ways to sell and buy music and new
companies uniquely qualified to verify sales information that the RIAA
does not even pick up on. TuneCore is one of these companies.
Three years after our launch, there is more music released via
TuneCore in one day then via any major record label over the course of
a year. Very soon, more music will have been released via TuneCore than
all the major record labels combined. Hundreds of thousands of artists
now have their music available around the world to be bought, share and
sold. They too deserve to be rewarded and recognized for the
achievements.
TuneCore is now certifying and issuing sales awards based on artists reaching new sales goals.
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