Recording Industry of South Africa


The Recording Industry of South Africa represents the interests of major and independent record labels in South Africa. There are approximately 1,000 members, including the big four record labels, Sony Music, Universal Music, EMI and Warner.
Located in Johannesburg, RISA is responsible for running the annual South African Music Awards SAMAs.
RISA is also responsible for acknowledging status awards for album sales. In the South Africa market, gold represents sales of 15,000 units while platinum represents sales of 30,000 units.

Anti piracy

RISA is the body that represents musicians and publishers when it comes to copyright. 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's it's illegal to convert a CD to MP3 in South Africa

RiSA certifications

Since August 2006, albums were required to sell 20,000 copies to be certified gold, and 40 000 copies to be certified platinum. These requirements were later adjusted for albums released from 1 December 2015; albums would need to achieve sales of 15,000 to be certified gold, 30,000 to be certified platinum and 200,000 to be diamond.

Album chart

A weekly top 20 album chart is aired every Saturday by Radio Sonder Grense, based on CD sales figures compiled by RiSA.