Effective today, February 1, the RIAA will now include audio and video streams and a track sale equivalent in gold and platinum album certifications. While Billboard and Nielsen Soundscan began factoring streaming in some time ago, artists were still not being awarded for going gold or platinum until they were all via traditional sales.

In 2013, RIAA first added on-demand streams to its Digital Single Award only, and now they have adapted to the times once again, as streaming continues to grow rapidly in popularity. To calculate the formula for album certification, 1,500 on-demand audio and/or video song streams will equal 10 single sales, which is 1 album sale. (In the same token, if 10 singles are purchased on iTunes, that is also 1 album sale.) For single certification, they have now updated the 2013 formula from 100 on-demand streams = 1 download to 150 on-demand streams = 1 download. This update was done “to reflect streaming’s enormous growth in the two plus years since that ratio was set.”

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With this new system, 17 albums have received new certifications today, including Big Sean’s Dark Sky Paradise (platinum), Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly (platinum), The Weeknd’s Beauty Behind The Madness (2x platinum) and Wale’s Ambition (gold.) Check out the full list here.

This is really going to change the game now.