Report: Apple to Encourage Artists to Release Songs in Dolby Atmos

Apple is reportedly planning to give artists a bigger incentive to release songs in Dolby Atmos, the spatial audio format that aims to deliver a premium listening experience. Bloomberg is reporting today that tracks mixed in Dolby Atmos could soon deliver better royalty payments, which could push more artists and labels to embrace the format.

“Starting next year, the company plans to give added weighting to streams of songs that are mixed in Dolby Atmos technology, according to people with knowledge of the matter. That could mean higher royalty payments for artists who are first to embrace the technology made by Dolby Laboratories Inc.,” the report reads.

According to Bloomberg, artists would benefit from the new policy even if users don’t listen to their songs in Dolby Atmos. “It only matters that the song is offered in that format,” the report says. This is quite important as listening to Apple Music songs in Dolby Atmos requires Apple or Beats Bluetooth headphones, or an iPhone, iPad, or Mac with Dolby Atmos speakers.

While spatial audio is something most filmmakers and movie enthusiasts are used to, it’s still a niche category in music. Along with Amazon, Apple is one of the few companies that’s been trying to democratize spatial audio in music by bringing it to its music subscription service at no additional cost two years ago. However, the selection of songs available in spatial audio on Apple Music is still quite limited.

If Apple manages to convince more artists to release songs (including existing songs) in Dolby Atmos, this could eventually convince more people to try Apple Music, which is still lagging behind Spotify even though the latter still has no spatial audio support. Having more content to listen to in spatial audio is also likely to boost sales of AirPods, HomePods, and other Apple hardware.