Starting this month, content that is in Spatial Audio format and available on Apple Music will receive a royalty percentage share up to 10% higher than content that is not available in Spatial Audio.
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According to a notice to its partners, Apple Music announced that starting at the end of January 2024, “percentage shares for plays available in Spatial Audio will be calculated using a factor of 1.1, while plays not available in Spatial Audio will continue to use a factor of 1.”
The news follows a Bloomberg report in December, which said Apple Music was preparing to “give extra weight to playbacks of songs” that are mixed in Dolby Atmos.
Apple Music said Monday that the upcoming “change is not only intended to reward the highest quality content, but also to ensure that artists are rewarded for the time and investment they put into mixing in Spatial Audio.”
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The Apple Music platform also says it is seeing “widespread adoption of Spatial Audio by the world’s largest producers,” with 80% of songs that reached Apple Music’s Global Daily Top 100 last year being available in Spatial Audio.
According to 9to5Mac, Apple Music subscribers “don’t necessarily need to listen” to music in the Spatial Audio format “for the artist to be rewarded with the additional payment.”
According to 9to5Mac, “the count is calculated based on the proportional percentage of plays available in Spatial Audio compared to plays not available in Spatial Audio.”
Additionally, Apple Music announced that over 90% of its listeners have experienced their music in Spatial Audio, while plays for music available in Spatial Audio have more than tripled in the last two years.
Apple Music has reported that the number of songs available in Spatial Audio has increased by about 5000% since its launch and has doubled in the last year alone.
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Apple Music introduced Spatial audio with support for Dolby Atmos in June 2021, free for all subscribers.
Apple said Monday that it has “zero tolerance for deceptive or false content, and that includes Apple Music’s Spatial Audio content.” The streaming service added that its teams have implemented “a procedural quality review that includes flagging content that is not delivered in accordance with Apple Music’s Spatial specifications and quality standards.”
Bloomberg reported in December that one of the reasons behind Apple Music’s decision to encourage artists and labels to produce spatial music is to encourage users to buy Apple hardware. Apple devices, including iPhones, AirPods, HomePods, MacBooks , and others, support Dolby Atmos and spatial audio.
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Elsewhere in the music industry, Spatial Audio is also included in Amazon Music Unlimited.
Amazon Music Unlimited states that it has a growing catalog of Spatial Audio songs that have been formatted in Dolby Atmos and 360 Reality Audio from some of the world's biggest artists.
The 360 Reality Audio format was launched by Sony Corp. with Amazon Music, Deezer, nugs.net and TIDAL in January 2019.
Amazon Music Unlimited customers can listen to Spatial via Fire Tablet (with Fire OS 6 and above), the Amazon Music iOS or Android app with any headphones.
Apple Music competitor Spotify currently does not offer any Spatial audio on its platform.
Spotify is rumored to be preparing a ' Supremium ' tier that offers 24-bit lossless music and the ability to create playlists using artificial intelligence , for a monthly subscription price of $ 19.99 .
Source: musicbusinessworldwide
