Apple Offers Higher Royalties for Spatial Audio, Worrying Indie Labels About Costs and Revenue Impacts
• Apple offering 10% higher royalties to artists releasing spatial audio tracks on Apple Music • Comes out of same fixed pool used to pay non-spatial audio artists • Spatial audio costs indie labels significantly more to produce • Executives worry spatial audio policy will divert 5-10% of revenue to major labels • Indie labels plan to negotiate with Apple for better spatial audio royalty deal