MUMBAI: Rap and hip-hop star Jay-Z has forced Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to change its rules on digital album sales certification leading to a certain quicker platinum certification of the artist’s upcoming album.

At the heart of the matter is the rapper’s new ablum ‘Magna Carta Holy Grail’ (MCHG) to be released officially on 9 July. The album will however be available free on 4 July to the first 1 million Samsung phone users to download it with a special app.  This practically assures platinum (sale of 1 million copies) status for MCGH.

While Jay-Z lost the battle to have the freebies added to his sales of the album on Billboard and Soundscan charts, RIAA said it has updated its Gold & Platinum Program (G & P) to enable sales of albums in digital format will become eligible on the release date.

It will accept Samsung based sales for certification for digital sales of the album upon delivery rather than be forced to wait 30 days that is still required for physical sales.

The 30-day rule exists to take into account potential returns of physical product — CDs, cassettes, vinyl, etc that could be shipped to brick and mortar retailers and returned, in which case do not count the sales, RIAA said.

An update posted by communications director Liz Kennedy on the RIAA website Monday 1 July stated:

"It is a novel and creative marketing move and it has rightly stimulated a healthy conversation about the sale's meaning and implications for the modern music business.

When we first created the Digital Single Award in 2004, we elected not to impose any 30-day rule because there are very few digital returns. Digital returns on average account for less than two percent of sales included in reports provided by the labels for certification.

"Also in 2004, sales of digital albums were virtually non-existent and accounted for a small fraction of overall digital sales.

We think it's time for the RIAA to align our digital song and album certification requirements. That's why today we are officially updating this rule in our G&P Program requirements. 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.”

Jay-Z had publicly questioned how the deal would be received in a rare use of his Twitter account: If 1 Million records gets SOLD and billboard doesnt report it, did it happen? Ha. #newrules #magnacartaholygrail Platinum!!! VII IV XIII.