These awards and their requirements are defined by the various certifying bodies representing the music industry in various countries and territories worldwide.
Additionally, some certifying bodies have separate threshold scales for works of domestic or international origins, varying genres, lengths, and formats.
^ I Australian, Belgian, Danish, Finnish, German, Hungarian, Mexican, Norwegian, Polish, Spanish, Swedish, British and American figures can include digital album sales.
A separate scale is used for jazz, spoken word, classical, and world music albums: sales exceeding 1,500 and 3,000 for Gold and Platinum awards respectively.
A separate scale is used for jazz, classical, and world music albums: sales exceeding 10,000 and 20,000 for Gold and Platinum awards respectively.
A separate scale is used for children, jazz, classical, and folk music albums: sales exceeding 10,000 and 20,000 for Gold and Platinum awards respectively.
^ XII South African sales figures provided refer to albums released after 1 December 2015.
[59] ^ XIV Awarded for actual retail sales in the following countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and United Kingdom.
^ XVI Although UPFR's certifications levels have never been clearly defined, it is known that they have been repeatedly lowered since their introduction, due to heavy music piracy and financial crisises in Romania.
[65] ^ XVIX Slovak certifications for albums are based on revenue (without VAT) of €10,000 for Gold and €20,000 for Platinum.
(40,000) (80,000) (800,000) ^ XIV Australian, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Indian, Irish, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, New Zealand, Norwegian, South African, Swedish, and British figures can include sales from legal digital downloads.
[64] ^ XXII Slovak certifications for albums are based on revenue (without VAT) of €2,000 for Gold and €4,000 for Platinum.
^ XXI Japanese physical and digital download sales exceeding 1,000,000 are given the "Million" award.
Full-length DVDs are on a differing scale: sales exceeding 10,000 and 20,000 for Gold and Platinum awards (beginning January 7, 2011), reduced from 15,000 and 30,000 copies, respectively.
A separate scale is used for jazz, spoken word, classical, and world music DVDs: sales exceeding 1,000 and 2,000 for Gold and Platinum awards respectively.
A separate scale is used for jazz/classical music videos: sales exceeding 2,500, 5,000, and 25,000 for Gold, Platinum, and Diamond awards respectively.
^ XXV Japanese master ringtone sales exceeding 1,000,000, is awarded "million", rather than "diamond".