“Canadian artists are thriving on Spotify – and the world is listening,” is the bullish headline for the streaming service’s latest country-specific breakdown of its payout stats for 2024. And in this particular country, the message is aimed squarely at local politicians and regulators.
The key numbers: Canadian artists’ Spotify royalties grew by 5% last year to nearly $460m CAD ($336.4m at current exchange rates). 92% of those royalties came from listeners outside Canada, while 40% of them were generated by independent artists and labels.
“Fifteen million hours of music by Canadian artists are streamed every day on Spotify around the world, and that music features on 2.4B user playlists globally,” added Spotify. “That makes Canada one of the world’s top music exporters and a key player in the global soundscape.”
There’s also this part, which is where the message to policymakers is most pointed. “Spotify alone paid more in royalties to the Canadian music sector in 2023 than the entire Canadian commercial radio industry combined…”
To recap the context for this: in 2024 Canada’s broadcasting regulator announced plans for a 5% levy on the local revenues of global streaming services, which would go into a $200m CAD-a-year fund supporting Canadian content and creators.
Spotify, Amazon and Apple subsequently filed a legal challenge against the levy; their representative body DiMA teamed up with labels body Music Canada for a joint letter protesting about it; and DiMA launched a ‘Scrap the Streaming Tax’ campaign warning that it would lead to increased subscription prices for listeners.
That played out in October 2024 when Spotify raised its prices in Canada. While it has done this elsewhere in the world, it appeared to have added a little extra – 70 cents by our calculations at the time – to cover the costs of the levy.
The argument of the streaming services has always been that they shouldn’t have to contribute to the Canadian content fund, because they already support local artists, songwriters and music in plenty of other ways – including providing them with a global platform.
The comparison with radio is part of that: the DiMA / Music Canada joint letter claimed that “streaming has allowed Canadian artists with no home in the traditional radio system to be found by their Canadian and international fans” and pointed to “higher levels of play on streaming for women and racially diverse artists compared to Canadian radio”.
That’s why the Canada Loud & Clear figures are getting a big push from Spotify now: the intent is to bolster the company’s argument against the streaming levy in Canada – but also, we think, to send a message to other policymakers around the world who may be considering similar measures.
