Independent labels claim that only “the biggest player” benefits from Apple Music’s spatial audio royalties

Some independent labels are upset about Apple’s new proposal to pay musicians who provide spatial audio a larger portion of royalties, claiming it will deprive them of potential revenue and benefit larger corporations, according to a Financial Times report. Last month, Apple began paying musicians 10% more in royalties when they distribute spatial audio compositions on Apple Music. However, this is funded by the same set amount of money that is also utilized to compensate artists who do not provide the format.

Executives who talked with FT estimated that the cost of producing spatial audio, which uses Dolby Atmos technology, is approximately $1,000 extra per song. It would cost roughly ten times as much for an entire album; Now double that by the number of records a label may have in its back catalog, which might be hundreds or thousands. Executives from Beggars Group, Secretly, and Partisan Records labels that house artists like Phoebe Bridgers and Vampire Weekend, spoke with The Financial Times.

An executive expressed concern to FT if this approach deducted 5 to 10% of worldwide earnings, not because the songs aren’t selling but rather because you lose that money and it goes to Universal, the largest company in the industry. Getting revenue from streaming is already challenging. In an attempt to negotiate a better price, they intend to bring it up with Apple.