Apple's new plan to give a larger share of royalties to artists offering spatial audio has angered some independent labels, who argue it will take away potential profits in favor of companies with more resources at their disposal, according to a report from the . Last month, Apple began offering artists releasing spatial audio tracks on Apple Music. But this comes from the same fixed pool of money that is also used to pay artists who don't offer the format.
Spatial audio is produced using Dolby Atmos technology and, according to executives who spoke with FOOT, costs approximately $1,000 more per song. A full album would cost about 10 times as much; now multiply that to account for the hundreds or thousands of albums a label may have in its back catalogue. He Financial times spoke with executives from Beggars Group, Secretly and Partisan Records, which house labels representing artists like Vampire Weekend, Phoebe Bridgers and others.
One executive said FOOT“If (this policy) takes away between 5 and 10 percent of your global income, and not even because the songs don't work but because you lose that money and it goes to Universal, the largest player in the market, we” We are definitely worried. It’s hard enough to make money streaming.” They plan to negotiate with Apple in hopes of reaching a better deal.
