Apple Music To Pay Artists More For Superior Audio Quality

Apple Music has announced an increase in royalty payments for music available in its immersive Spatial Audio on the streaming service. The company emphasized its commitment to rewarding artists for creating higher-quality content as technology evolves. The change, effective from January's month-end royalty payments, means songs in Spatial Audio will now receive a payout rate up to 10 percent higher than other tracks. Importantly, listeners need not exclusively engage with the Spatial versions to boost royalties; the songs just need to be available in Spatial.

The adjustment aims not only to acknowledge superior content quality but also to ensure fair compensation for artists investing time and effort in Spatial mixing, as stated in the announcement. Spatial Audio, utilizing Dolby Atmos technology, has been part of Apple Music since 2021. Initially hailed as a music-listening revolution, akin to the shift from mono to stereo, it offers an impressive surround sound experience. However, critics and listeners have noted that differences can be less noticeable or underwhelming in some cases.

The extent of increased royalties for songs and artists remains unclear. While Apple did not provide specific figures, it highlighted a remarkable 5,000 percent growth in Spatial Audio songs since launch. About 80 percent of last year's Apple Music Daily Top 100 tracks were in Spatial Audio. Although new releases increasingly support Spatial Audio, there are still many pre-2021 catalog albums yet to adopt the format.

The motivation behind Apple's boost in Spatial royalties is not immediately apparent. A December Bloomberg report suggested it could drive consumer purchases of Apple hardware. Spatial Audio also serves as a distinguishing factor from competitors like Spotify.

Apple has consistently emphasized high-end audio, offering free lossless audio to all Apple Music subscribers. While Amazon Music quickly followed suit, Spotify has yet to provide a similar offering, despite floating the idea of hi-fi audio.

Since its launch over two years ago, Apple Music has actively promoted Spatial Audio. The company has integrated Spatial Audio capabilities into various headphones and prominently features new spatial audio releases at the top of Apple Music's browse page.