Starting November 21st, Billboard will have a new policy for artists to make the charts, based on criticisim by critics and artists alike of it's current policies. For example, Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" debuted at number one, but was sold at a very discounted price. It's new policies are as follows:
-Albums priced below $3.49 will not be eligible on the Billboard album charts during their first four weeks of release and will not count towards sales data presented by Nielsen SoundScan.
- Unit sales for Digital Tracks priced below $0.39 during their first three months of release will not be eligible for inclusion on Billboard's digital songs charts.
- Minimum pricing for a multi-disc album (not a single disc with extra tracks), where the extra disc is audio content, will be $3.49 times the amount of discs being made available.
- Unit sales for albums or EPs with 8 or less tracks will not be eligible for charting if the retail price is less than the sum of the tracks on the release, multiplied by $0.39