Apple eyes paying extra for music in a format Spotify doesn’t offer

Apple Music may soon pay all artists that release music in the Dolby Atmos spatial audio format a higher royalty rate than regular stereo mixes.

“Listeners wouldn’t necessarily have to play the Atmos version of a song for artists to benefit. It only matters that the song is offered in that format,” sources told Bloomberg.

While many songs are already released with Atmos and regular mixes, Apple may see reasons to push adoption further, particularly since rival Spotify does not offer its subscribers access to spatial audio.

Tools to mix songs in Atmos are readily available, and Apple supports the format via its AirPods, iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, and HomePod devices. Others, including Amazon and Sonos, also offer Atmos-optimized devices.

Bruce Houghton is the Founder and Editor of Hypebot, a Senior Advisor at Bandsintown, President of the Skyline Artists Agency, and a Berklee College Of Music professor.