Apple Music paying artists more for Spatial Audio tracks

Apple Music hopes to increase its Spatial Audio music offering by paying artists up to 10% more royalties as long as they've published songs in the format.

Dolby Atmos music, which Apple has dubbed Spatial Audio music, launched in 2021 on Apple Music. The feature has proven popular for the service, but Apple wants more artists taking part in the format.

In what was likely an email to Apple Music artists seen by 9to5Mac, Apple is encouraging artists to make their music available in Spatial Audio. As long as an artist has tracks available in Spatial Audio, the artist is eligible for royalties up to 10% higher from Apple.

The payout doesn't rely on what Apple Music users listen to on the service. Instead, it is determined by the proportion of Spatial Audio songs to non-Spatial Audio songs.

For example, for artists to get the full 10% incentive, they'll have to offer all of their music in Spatial Audio.

Apple shared that 90% of users have at least tried listening to a song in Spatial Audio, plus plays in the format have tripled since the 2021 launch. The number of songs available in Spatial Audio has increased by nearly 5,000%, doubling in 2023 alone.

Apple sees the higher royalty percentage as both an incentive and a reward. The company wants more high-quality music on its platform but also addresses that recording audio for Dolby Atmos tracks is a higher effort.

7 Comments

jimh2 665 comments · 8 Years

About 10 months ago

The last thing anyone needs is for music to altered from the way the creator intended it to be. It is like editing a movie to fit within a time block or reformatting a 16:9 to fit a 4:3 display. Not what the created intended.

lolliver 497 comments · 10 Years

About 10 months ago

jimh2 said:

The last thing anyone needs is for music to altered from the way the creator intended it to be. It is like editing a movie to fit within a time block or reformatting a 16:9 to fit a 4:3 display. Not what the created intended.

I see it as more the opposite of those examples. Editing a 16:9 movie to fit into 4:3 is taking away from the original film. Same with editing a movie to shorten it and fit within a time block.

Mastering a song for Spatial Audio is more like digitally restoring or remastering an old film that may have degraded over time or remastering the audio for surround sound. Sure, it won't be exactly the same as the original, but the changes are more to do with additional benefits of modern technology that weren't available at the time of recording.

It's not always done well though (in music or film) so I can definitely see why you would be concerned. There are times when a song in spatial audio makes the song worse, similar to how many people view the digital changes George Lucas made to the original Star Wars films as making them worse.

The difference with spatial audio on Apple Music though is you can still listen to the originals if you prefer. For the most part I prefer the Spatial Audio masters but there are a few songs where I feel (for my own personal tastes) that the original is better.

Pancake 45 comments · 2 Years

About 10 months ago

jimh2 said:

The last thing anyone needs is for music to altered from the way the creator intended it to be. It is like editing a movie to fit within a time block or reformatting a 16:9 to fit a 4:3 display. Not what the created intended.

You have no idea what you are talking about. A music creator wants their music to be heard live. Special Audio is the closest thing you can get to that outside of going to a live event.

chasm 3612 comments · 10 Years

About 10 months ago

As others have noted, the actual music you enjoy was NOT recorded with two groups of musicians all huddled together on the left and right side of the studio, so in point of fact Dolby Atmos/Spatial Audio is MORE TRUE to the way the music was recorded and originally mixed in studio, at least for any music recorded in the last 40 years or so.

Listening to the original tapes in a studio is a VERRRRY different experience to listening to the record or CD at home, I assure you.

Certainly, Spatial Audio is not appropriate for all music (archival recordings that only exist in mono springs to mind, but there are other examples), but clearly Apple’s letter is aimed at musicians who are still active/recording, who might be willing to remaster their stuff (which needs to be done with most older recordings anyway, and has been happening on a huge scale). With some care, the Atmos/Spatial mix should be MORE like the actual original recording, not less.

I’m glad Apple is encouraging this AND compensating artists for the extra cost of remastering for Atmos/Spatial.

Cesar Battistini Maziero 408 comments · 8 Years

About 10 months ago

I love Spatial Audio a lot.

It really revolutionized music.

Many old álbuns are totally new in Spatial