Apple Music has announced that artists will be paid higher royalties for music made available in spatial audio, with the new rate starting in January. ‘Spatial audio’ is defined as virtual surround sound and was made available in June 2021 at no additional cost. The move comes after it was reported that the company was planning to “give added weighting to streams of songs” mixed in Dolby Atmos. Apple Music says that the higher royalties are “not only meant to reward higher quality content but also to ensure that artists are being compensated for the time and investment they put into mixing in Spatial.”
Bloomberg theorised that the move to reward artists for using spatial audio was to encourage them to purchase Apple hardware. iPhones, AirPods, MacBooks and more all support Dolby Atmos and spatial audio. Furthermore, it may also be a means of edging out the competition; whilst Amazon Music offers songs in spatial audio, Spotify currently does not. However, the streaming platform is reportedly planning to release a ‘Supremium’ tier, which would feature lossless audio (which is given to Apple Music listeners for free).
Apple recently drew the ire of Spotify for their proposed changes to transaction fees, which the latter called “outrageous”. Under the new plans, Apple will charge up to 27% commission on app developers selling products away from the Apple Store. Spotify accused the company of “stopping at nothing” to protect profits, and called for the UK government to take action to prevent the same situation happening in the UK.
The move by Apple Music can be seen as part of an ongoing push to offer superior audio experiences to users. As more devices become compatible with spatial audio, it is likely that it will become an increasingly popular format for both recording and streaming content. It will be interesting to see whether other streaming services follow suit and offer higher royalties and other incentives to artists who choose to use spatial audio in their music
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