Alex Omenye
Apple has disclosed it will pay additional royalties starting this month to artists to have a spatial audio version on Apple Music.
The royalties will be up to 10% if an artist has all their songs in spatial audio, according a report by 9to5Mac.
“Pro-rata shares for Spatial Available plays will be calculated using a factor of 1.1 while Non-Spatial available plays will continue to use a factor of 1,” Apple said.
“This change is 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.” it added.
Since Apple introduced Spatial Audio in 2021, the number of songs available in this format has surged by 5,000%, though specific figures weren’t provided.
A Bloomberg report in December indicated that Apple planned to offer incentives for artists to create songs using Dolby Atmos technology for Apple Music.
Competitors such as Amazon Prime Music, Tidal, and Deezer already provide spatial audio options. Meanwhile, Spotify has been discussing a Hi-Fi tier for several years but has yet to launch it.
This move by Apple coincides with the European Union’s efforts to establish regulations for fairer artist revenue distribution from music streaming platforms. Apple has not yet made any public statements regarding this report.
In the previous year, Spotify updated its royalty policy, stipulating that only tracks with over 1,000 streams in the past year would be eligible for royalties.
