This document outlines the details regarding the integration of official video views into Music Canada’s Gold/Platinum criteria for Single Awards.
What is Gold/Platinum?
Music Canada’s Gold & Platinum Program is the benchmark of success in the recorded music industry.
These awards celebrate the milestone sales accomplishments of artists in Canada — whether they’ve just released their first hit or they’re a global superstar creating the tracks that define a generation.
How does a song or album get certified?
To be certified, the release’s rightsholder (usually the record label, or the artist themselves if self represented) must submit an application through Music Canada’s Gold/Platinum online portal. The applicant must submit proof of sales, streams, and official video views, which will be reviewed and independently verified by Music Canada. Applicants must meet all Certification requirements, as detailed on the Music Canada website.
What are the certification levels?
Single Awards are certified at the following tiers:
- Gold: 40,000 Units
- Platinum: 80,000 Units
- Multi-Platinum: 160,000 Units (increments of 80,000 thereafter)
- Diamond: 800,000 Units
How are eligible units for Single Award certification calculated?
Eligible units include a song’s digital sales, on-demand audio streams, and official video streams within the Canadian market.
Effective March 5, 2024, Music Canada will apply economic weighting to on-demand audio streams and official video streams to better account for the differing economics of ad-supported and subscription-based streams. Guided by industry best practices, each format will be assigned an equivalent value of streams that count as 1 unit towards certification.
Music Canada will use the following formula to determine a song’s eligible units for certification:
Digital Song Sales (1:1)
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Premium On-Demand Audio Streams (160:1)
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Ad-Supported On-Demand Audio Streams (240:1)
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Premium Official Video Streams (160:1)
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Ad-Supported Official Video Streams (240:1)
What constitutes an “official video stream”?
The eligibility for official video streams will include all “official” video streams within Canada from a Music Canada-approved Digital Service Provider (DSP) (an “Approved DSP”), and which occurred on or after January 1, 2020. Music Canada maintains a list of licensed DSPs at https://musiccanada.com/digital-music/.
Official video streams refers to content that meets both of the primary criteria below:
- Video content that is uploaded to an official artist source, i.e. an artist’s official channel or a channel associated with the artist, and,
- which contains a single musical recording in which the song is the primary focus of the clip.
Types of video content that would generally not be considered official content, and therefore would not be eligible for inclusion in certification criteria include, but are not limited to:
- “Behind the Scenes” or “Making of” videos
- Blooper reels or a similarly edited versions of official videos
- Dance instruction videos
- Announcement/trailer videos
- Non-music focused videos that include part of the song or official video, but where this content is not the primary focus of the clip.
- Video streams served as paid advertisements (such as pre-roll ads or YouTube Trueview placements).
Streams of videos from content identified by video platforms as User-Generated Content (UGC), either Song UGC or Non-Song UGC, are ineligible for certification, unless the certifying label submits the video URL and ISRC code for verification as an otherwise official video to Music Canada.
Music Canada