Thriller (Michael Jackson album) the opinion that he was a "musical phenomenon" and that "in the world of pop music, there is Michael Jackson and there is everybody else". Jackson changed the way the industry functioned: both as an artistic persona and as a financial, profitable entity. His attorney John Branca observed that Jackson achieved the highest royalty rate in the music industry to that point: approximately $2 (US$ in dollars) for each album sold. As a result, Jackson earned record-breaking profits from compact disc sales and from the sale of copies of the documentary, "The Making of Michael Jackson's Thriller", produced by Jackson
Thriller (Michael Jackson album) selling three million copies worldwide in 12 weeks. After Jackson's death in June 2009, "Thriller" set additional records. It sold more than 100,000 copies, placing it at number two on the Top Pop Catalog Albums chart. Songs from "Thriller" also helped Jackson become the first artist to sell more than one million song downloads in a week. According to Nielsen SoundScan, "Thriller" was the 14th best-selling album of 2009 in the United States, with 1.27 million copies sold. For one week beginning November 20, 2015, Google Play Music offered a free copy of the album to its users in the