New guidelines recognize recording professionals who release digital product

GRAMMY.com

The Recording Academy, together with the support of its Board of Trustees, announced yesterday that it has expanded its membership qualifications. These additional guidelines recognize recording professionals who release their product digitally, and who wish to become voting members and participate in the GRAMMY Awards process.

Currently, The Academy's qualification procedure allows applicants who have six commercially released tracks that are on a non-consignment basis to become eligible to vote. The new digital qualification process now gives individuals two more ways to apply for voting membership consideration — digital distribution and member endorsement. Various requirements include being credited on a minimum of 12 tracks, consisting of one release, or multiple releases, or two full-length releases; and the album(s) must be available for sale to the general public in an established online setting (i.e., Amazon.com, CD Baby, iTunes, Rhapsody, Yahoo!, Emusic, Musicmatch, CD Universe, etc.). Additionally, an applicant may be endorsed by two current voting members of The Academy. Specific forms and criteria for becoming a potential voting member will be available on GRAMMY.com this summer.

"As we expand and grow as an Academy that represents the voice of more than 17,000 music makers, we embrace how technology has revolutionized the legal distribution of music," said Neil Portnow, President of The Recording Academy. "By enhancing our voting membership qualifications we invite more diversity, further strengthening the GRAMMY as an award that truly is a peer-to-peer honor."