Ongoing History Daily: Being Canadian via MAPL

Have you ever looked closely at any of the Canadian releases in your collection?  You may have noticed a strange marking that looks like a pie cut into quarters and one or more of the following letters:  M, A, P, and L.  That’s the official Canadian content metric for the music on that disc–and it’s known as the “maple mark.”

M stands for “music,” the A is for “artist,” and L is for “lyrics.” You would think that the “P” stands for “producer.” It should but it doesn’t. In designates that a recording was recorded live in Canada for broadcast in Canada. It really makes no sense these days. For a particular song to qualify as Canadian, it must have at least two of those letters.

There are weird loopholes in this system.  For example, a Canadian artist could cover a song written by an American and have the whole thing produced by a Brit.  That would make the song only one part Cancon (the artist)—making this recording by a Canadian artist NOT officially Canadian.