This week, Apple Music announced a new program that will reward musicians and record labels for expanding their catalog of songs mixed in spatial audio. As part of the program, artists whose songs are available in the immersive format will now earn up to 10% more royalties from the streaming service. This news has been met with great excitement from the music industry.

The revelation came in an update to Apple’s label partners, initially spotted by industry publication Music Business Worldwide. According to the letter, Apple will use a scaled royalty rate that favors spatial audio tracks over regular stereo mixes.

“Pro-rata shares for Spatial Available plays will be calculated using a factor of 1.1 while Non-Spatial Available plays will continue to use a factor of 1,” the memo reads. In simple terms, this means Apple will pay slightly more out of its pooled subscription revenue for Dolby Atmos or spatial audio streams compared to standard audio streams.

The move has been expected since last December when Bloomberg reported similar bonus plans. But this week’s update solidifies Apple’s push into more immersive music formats.

Nearly all of Apple’s recent devices now support playback of spatial audio, including AirPods, iPhones, iPads, Macs, Apple TV set-top boxes, and HomePod smart speakers. The technology aims to give songs a more three-dimensional, movie-theater-like sound quality by using directional audio techniques.

Apple boasted that its spatial audio catalog has grown over 5,000% since 2021, likely spurred on by the growing installed base of compatible devices. However, exact figures were not provided.

The smartphone and streaming music giant clearly hopes the new artist payouts will incentivize adding spatial audio to even more new and old songs alike. Music fans have increasingly sought out more premium listening experiences in recent years, such as lossless HD audio and spatial sound.

Apple Music rival Tidal also offers spatial audio content, as do video streamers like Netflix and HBO Max. Other big music streamers like Spotify and Amazon Music Unlimited have been slower to add support. Spotify still hasn’t launched its long-promised audiophile-grade Spotify Hi-Fi tier.

With the latest changes, Apple Music has clearly placed itself at the forefront of the music streaming world’s pivot toward more immersive and three-dimensional sound. And by paying artists more for spatial audio tracks, the company hopes to accelerate the catalog growth to keep audiophile subscribers happy.

The ball is now in the music industry’s court to embrace mixing more content for spatial audio. But with the promise of bigger royalty payouts, Apple Music has given creators plenty of reasons to add Dolby Atmos to their next single or album.