Apple Music to Incentivize Artists to Make Songs Available in Spatial Audio

Apple will begin encouraging artists and record labels to adopt Spatial Audio with royalty incentives, Bloomberg reports.

Citing sources familiar with the matter, Bloomberg says that Apple will prioritize streams of songs mixed in Dolby Atmos technology in its streaming calculations starting next year. The change will result in higher royalty payments for artists and labels that adopt and expand the technology in their catalogs. Listeners do not have to listen to the Spatial Audio version of a song for artists to be eligible for the added benefits, with the availability of tracks in Dolby Atmos being sufficient. The new Apple Music policy is yet to be publicly announced.

‌Apple Music‌ introduced Spatial Audio support in 2021, using Dolby Atmos technology to ostensibly replicate an in-person music experience with sound coming from various directions around the listener when using compatible audio hardware. In February 2022, Apple announced that over half of the service's subscribers used the feature. Amazon Music similarly provides Dolby Atmos audio at no additional cost, but Spotify has yet to adopt the format.