Spotify is working with Australia to promote Australian music. Why can’t the same happen in Canada?

There’s a new Spotify campaign called “Turn up AUS,” which is aimed at promoting Australian music through editorial content, playlists, live events, and industry education programs.

Here’s a quote from a Spotify executive: “[Spotify is] going to be using this brand platform across everything: across our research, our industry engagement, but it’s our high impact channels, with out of home and social and there’s material investment behind it.”

This came out of a parliamentary inquiry into the state of the Australian music industry. One of the recommendations is “The Committee recommends the Australian Government work with music streaming services to increase the proportion of Australian content that algorithms or automated playlists generate for Australian users, and that if co-operation is not forthcoming that legislation be strongly considered to mandate and enforce higher proportions of Australian music on these services.”

So…a quota? Kinda like CanCon? I thought Spotify hated quotas.

Huh. This is suspiciously close to what Bill C-11 wants streamers to do in Canada. But here, the streamers are whining that they shouldn’t have to make any investment into the Canadian music system.

So what’s the problem, Spotify? Why is something like this possible in Australia but not Canada? We’ll wait for your answer.