Recording Industry of South Africa (RISA) is a trade association representing the interests of major and independent record labels of South Africa. Located in Randburg, RISA is responsible for running the annual South African Music Awards (SAMAs) and for

music recording certification Music recording certification is a system of certifying that a music Sound recording, recording has shipped, sold, or streamed a certain number of units. The threshold quantity varies by type (such as album, single, music video) and by nation o ...

in South Africa. It also runs

The Official South African Charts The Official South African Charts (TOSAC) is the music industry standard record chart in South Africa launched by RISA for local and international songs. Chart rankings are based on digital sales and online streaming in South Africa through i ...

(TOSAC).

Anti-piracy

RISA is the body that represents musicians and publishers when it comes to

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, education ...

. The South African Copyright Act of 1978 states: "You may not make a copy of a sound recording without the permission of the author." This has been interpreted to mean that it is illegal to convert a CD to MP3 in South Africa.

RiSA certifications

Like the levels in most countries, RiSA certification levels were adjusted over the years to adjust for the changing music market. Until August 2006, albums were required to sell 25,000 units for gold certificate and 50,000 for platinum. For albums released since August 2006, the levels for albums were lowered to 20,000 copies for gold and 40,000 for platinum. These requirements were further adjusted for albums released from 1 December 2015, requiring 15,000 for gold and 30,000 for platinum. Digital sales are also accepted from August 2006, with 30

mastertone A ringtone, ring tone or ring is the sound made by a telephone to indicate an incoming call. Originally referring to and made by the electromechanical striking of bells, the term now refers to any sound on any device alerting of a new incoming ...

or ringback tone or 10 full track downloads equalling one album. The levels were adjusted in August 2018 to 220 master tones or ringback tones equalling one album. Streams were introduced in December 2018, with 1200 streams equalling one album. The levels for singles were rather stable, 10,000 for gold and 25,000 for platinum, and remained the same at least until June 2013, the last IFPI International Certification Award levels report. With the introduction of a new RiSA website in August 2016, the level for platinum was 20,000. Digital sales for singles appeared in August 2018, with 22 master tones or ringback tones being equal to selling one single. Streams were added in December 2018 with 120 streams equally one single. Other certification include multi-box audio sets (3 or more units per box) which are certified at 12,500 for gold and 25,000 for platinum, music videos at 5,000/10,000 and DVDs at 10,000/20,000.

Album chart

A weekly top 20 album chart is aired every Saturday by

Radio Sonder Grense Radio Sonder Grense (RSG), i.e. Radio Without Borders, is an Afrikaans-language radio service run by the South African Broadcasting Corporation for the whole of South Africa. Since Afrikaans is one of South Africa's 11 official languages, the ...

, based on CD sales figures compiled by RiSA.

Streaming charts

On 2 September 2021, RISA announced the launch of

(TOSAC), which includes a top 100

streaming Streaming media is multimedia that is delivered and consumed in a continuous manner from a source, with little or no intermediate storage in network elements. ''Streaming'' refers to the delivery method of content, rather than the content it ...

chart for tracks by South African artists or that have at least one South African artist featured on them, as well as a combined top 100 streaming chart that includes all international and local songs. The streaming data is collected from Spotify,

Apple Music Apple Music is a music, audio and video streaming service developed by Apple Inc. Users select music to stream to their device on-demand, or they can listen to existing playlists. The service also includes the Internet radio stations Apple ...

and Deezer.

References

External links