When RIAA announced Rihanna’s eight album ANTI which became available to buy on iTunes and stream on January 29 was officially certified platinum after it received over a million downloads on the Jay Z owned streaming service Tidal, there were a lot of critics arguing the fairness of this speedy achievement. Today the rules have been thrown out the window letting on demand audio and video streams count toward album sales in the Gold and Platinum album award. With people streaming and buying their music more than ever this radical change almost seems like it shouldn’t be a shock but look at the trending topic on Twitter and a lot of people can confirm their mixed emotions.

According to RIAA’s website:

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

150 on-demand streams = 1 download

There are 17 artists that are reaping the benefits of these modernized rules including:

Alt-J An Awesome Wave (Atlantic Records) Gold

Big Sean Dark Sky Paradise (Def Jam Recordings) Platinum

Elle King Love Stuff (RCA) Gold

Fifth Harmony Reflection (Epic) Gold

Halsey Badlands (Astralwerks) Gold

Kendrick Lamar To Pimp a Butterfly (Top Dawg Entertainment/Interscope) Platinum

Michael Jackson Thriller (Epic/Legacy) 32X Platinum

Shawn Mendes Handwritten (Island Records) Platinum

The Weeknd Beauty Behind the Madness (XO/Republic Records) 2X Multi-Platinum

Congratulations to these artists and all the other ones that are going to get record sales boost but it’s going to take some time to take this achievement serious. I get that streaming isn’t going away anytime soon and since people don’t like paying for records anymore, this new rule makes it a little more fair for the artist but I also get why this is harder to handle for older people who aren’t ready to see another music format go away.

What do you think of this new RIAA achievement? Let me know in the comments!