In 1958 the Recording Industry Association of America, Inc. began to issue awards recognizing records that had sold extremely well, based on audits they conducted. Originally the RIAA recognized as gold records a single that sold one million copies and an album that had a million dollars in sales. Currently, the awards require unit sales in the United States (but including military post exchanges abroad) at these levels:
Diamond records were introduced in 1999.
| Single | Full-Length Album |
Music video single | Music video longform | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gold® | 500,000 | 500,000 | 25,000 | 50,000 |
| Platinum® | 1,000,000 | 1,000,000 | 50,000 | 100,000 |
| Multi-Platinum™ | 2,000,000 | 2,000,000 | 100,000 | 200,000 |
| Diamond® | 10,000,000 |
Requirements other than units sold also apply. For a detailed explanation of these requirements, the history of the awards, a database of winners, and much else, go to www.riaa.com/
A more recent award, the Platinum Europe, was created in 1996 by the International Federation of Phonograph Industries. For the winners of that award, see www.ifpi.org
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Last revised: 25 July 2001.