Apple plans to offer financial incentives to artists and record labels who mix songs using surround-sound Spatial Audio technology Dolby Atmos, sources close to the matter said Monday.
Greater weighting placed on those audio streams starting in 2024 will likely mean higher royalties paid out.
Musicians using Dolby Atmos may get higher royalties from Apple
And musicians and producers using Dolby Atmos in their mixes won’t just get paid higher royalties for a Dolby Atmos version of a song stream. They’ll get it for regular ones as well — as long as there is an Atmos version, according to a report in Bloomberg.
That could include older tracks, which might attract more artists and labels to the practice.
The article’s sources remained anonymous because Apple has made no announcement yet. But they added Dolby Atmos is affordable for mixing music, so the hope is a broad range of artists will use it in order to see profit from a royalties boost.
And in turn, if more artist mix with Atmos so more songs are available in it, more consumers may buy Apple products that support it, like AirPods and HomePods.
But Apple, which introduced Spatial Audio to Apple Music in 2021, did not comment for the story.
David Snow, an expert on Apple hardware and software, writes on a variety of technological and cultural topics for Cult of Mac. They include Apple news, technology buying guides, and features about computer setups and Apple TV shows and movies.
With 30 years of experience covering technology and other subjects, he has written and edited for numerous print and online publications, including CMP Media, TechTV.com, CNET, Wired News, Red Herring magazine, Law.com, The National Law Journal and Law Technology News magazine. Among other roles, he served as executive editor of the Law.com network of websites and editorial director, technology, for ALM Media.
Snow graduated with a B.A. from Syracuse University with majors in magazine journalism and psychology. While there, he worked as a reporter for The Daily Orange newspaper and associate editor of Equal Time magazine.
Founder of the blog At the Waterline, he can be reached on X (formerly Twitter) via @atthewaterline and on Mastodon via @dsnow.
