The Recording Industry Association of Japan is an industry trade groupcomposed of Japanese corporations involved in the music industry. It was founded in 1942 as the Japan Phonogram Record Cultural Association, and adopted its current name in 1969. The RIAJ's activities include promotion of music sales, enforcement of copyright law, and research related to the Japanese music industry. It publishes the annual RIAJ Year Book, a statistical summary of each year's music sales, as well as distributing a variety of other data. Headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, the RIAJ has twenty member companies and a smaller number of associate and supporting members; some member companies are the Japanese branches of multinational corporations headquartered elsewhere. The association is responsible for certifying gold and platinum albums and singles in Japan.
RIAJ Certification
In 1989, the Recording Industry Association of Japan introduced the music recording certification systems. It is awarded based on shipment figures of compact disc or cassette tape which was reported by record labels. In principle, the criteria are limitedly applied to the materials released after January 21, 1989.
Certification awards
Currently, all music sales including singles, albums, digital download singles are on the same criteria. Unlike many countries, the highest certification is not called "Diamond" or "Platinum", but "Million".
Old criteria (until June 2003)
Before the unification of criteria and introduction of music videos category in July 2003, a separate scale had been used for certification awards.
Digital certifications
Certifications for songs and albums released digitally began on September 20, 2006, using download data collected since the early 2000s. From 2006 until 2013, there were three categories for certifications: Chaku-uta, Chaku-uta Full and PC Haishin for songs purchased on services such as iTunes. On February 28, 2014, the Chaku-uta Full and PC categories were merged to create the Single Track category. While digital album certifications are possible, only certain album have rarely received this certification since the beginning of digital certifications, including the 2011 Songs for Japan charity album. and Hikaru Utada's sixth studio albumFantôme among others.
Streaming only
As of April 2020, RIAJ has begun to certify songs for streaming, just how it does for physical shipments and digital download sales. Unlike physical shipments and digital download sales, the streaming certifications will have their own levels, due to the higher amount of streams compared to the other formats.
