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Ring Tones Will Save the Music Industry
tabdelgawad writes "Well, not quite, but according to Jay A. Samit, senior vice president for new media at music label EMI Group PLC, quoted in this Washington Post article, "This is huge. This is the largest growth area for music companies and our artists". The article goes on to prove two facts we already know: that the music industry is greedy (already asking for a bigger slice of this pie!) and that the porn industry is a prime innovator in marketing and technology :-)"
But will you have to pay royalties if your phone rings in a crowd, and others hear it?
Going off in a theatre is bad enough, but just imagine if it rang in a taxi-cab!
There's no way I could write a great symphony. I might pull out a hit pop single, given enough time and some dance moves. But a great ring tone? No problem.
First, I already hate it when someone leaves their phone on in a movie or quiet resturant... now I have to be subjected to their music tastes too? This is like carrying a little ghetto blaster with you wherever you go.
And second, I just bought a new phone that came with something loaded on it as the ring, and I can't figure it out because I'm not 16 and I don't listen to top 40 radio.
If you like your music that much, get a frickin iPod or Rio and keep it to yourself.
What worse way to become musically recognized:
"I take good songs, and translate them into annoying beeps. I'm proud of that and would like to publicly take credit for it."
Then again, with the general level of quality that the music industry expects of it new up-and-coming groups, he just may be able to get that fat record deal he's always been hoping for.
The Rise and Fall of Online Community
ring tones become p2p ware and the music industry use this as a new excuse to close down p2p.
Alcohol and Calculus don't mix. Don't drink and derive.
It might even be less annoying than when someone comes in with a rap song on their phone and people get the wrong idea. Think about it:
Beep Beep Beep.
"Sorry Jimmy, but you can't have that Eminem CD; those words he uses are too dirty. See how they've censored them all?"
My brother lives in Tokyo and actually made some ring tones for Yamaha over there early this year. I thought it was weird cuz it seemed like such a big deal over there. Besides their phones being about 5-10 years ahead of ours (for real), they had a completely different attitude about it. They threw a huge party for the release there. He's a dj too, so they supported him spinning and had their ads and stuff all over - I guess kinda like a record release almost.
But it seems tho that since we're so behind here that that won't materialize like it has overseas - and not just Japan, but in a lot of other wireless countries. I dunno, our attitude and recording industry cartel just seems different here; hard to say what will happen..
Expect a phone call from the RIAA When you answer it, you get threatened with a DCMA lawsuit for infringing the intellectual property of a long dead classical composer.
that they already get money from the tones, but they want more. It's like when somebody tells you to give him something and he gives you money in exchange, and next time you ask for more money and more and more.
It would be FANTASTIC if the music labels kept their music under lock and key, to make sure nobody would hear it.
Sadly for humanity, that's not what they want...
GM owns the design of my car, but I own the car itself. I can loan it out to whom ever I choose, paint it any color I like, drive it as fast or as slow as I want.
So use a better fucking analogy.
Asshole.
Of course, you can expect the RIAA to try to have it outlawed...
Yeah!!
To all you fools out there driving Saturn SC2's from 1994, PAY UP!!
He painted a unicorn in outer space. I'm askin' ya, what's it breathin'?
Im fine with the 35 ring tones that came with my Nokia 3310 Phone, and tone codes are everywhere on the internet, but there are all the stupid losers who phone £1.50/minute 0906 numbers to get a bastardised beeping version of the latest chart hit.
With Processing power on Mobile Phones getting better, it would make sense to be able to play REAL Sound files. A 20-30 second sound mp3 file could easily fit on a phone, and it could be worth the price of around £2 per mini song, but not a couple of silly beeps
Landline phones are starting to get more spiced up, the singing lizard phone for example. But they are FREAKING PHONES after all, and they are supposed to go RING RING, not beep beep beep beep beep beep beep, leave that to Ellen Fiess!
Nero-burning ROM for Linux!
From the article:
... Hm. Hey, so anyway, did you watch Friends last night?..."
Approximately 50 percent of Europeans under the age of 30 have downloaded ring tones, according to Stonefield, who believes the U.S. market is ripe for similar growth. "There is no way that kind of distribution is going to be held back; it is a real social trend," he said.
Yes, it is a social trend, but not a U.S. one.
Most of the fads we see tend to have some obvious -- if obnoxious -- logic to it. Macarena? Catchy and annoying as all get-out. Pokemon? Competition, community, kids running around saying dumb things (which is precisely what kids are supposed to do). Micro RC cars? Cute and disturbingly entertaining to everyone but our employers and cats. I could go on for quite some time but because I wish to annoy you, the gracious reader, as little as possible, I'll get right to the point.
What do frickin' ringtones offer?
"Oh, hey! Cool, Rock Me Amadaeus as a ringtone! Sweet!
This is not a U.S. phenomenon and it won't ever be a U.S. phenominon. I'm not trying to imply that the United States is somehow more sophisticated, I'm suggesting that Americans tend to view cellphones ringing about as enjoyable as listening to a car alarm going off. And not because they're boring, monotone and tedious, either. We dislike the phone because it represents an interruption, rendered jarringly, like an audial ICQ popup (though I'm told they don't do that anymore).
Again, from the article:
"This is huge," said Jay A. Samit, senior vice president for new media at music label EMI Group PLC. "This is the largest growth area for music companies and our artists."
This is a sign that companies are literally scraping the bottom of the barrel, not the bleeding edge of the Next Great Thing.
My
Limekiller
Don't some phones let you input tunes manually? Basically by entering a string of characters that represent tones and duration?
What's to stop people from publishing this list? Would they be slapped with piracy? How long must a ring tone be before it is considered a work? If I play "Bum-bum-bum, ba-da-bum bum" would I get charged for "Pressure" or "Ice Ice Baby"?
"Ownership" is a legal concept, "greediness" is not. Most people who are greedy do, in fact, own everything legally. Therefore, the music industry's use of the tunes they own can still be greedy. Uncle Scrooge was greedy, but presumably not usually a crook. And greedy behavior is sometimes followed by outlawing formerly legal behavior; loan sharking, for example, is greedy behavior that is now illegal. You see, it's we, the people, who ultimately decide where the boundaries of ownership are, and greediness is one factor we consider in those decisions. Is that simple enough for you to understand or do we need to draw you a map?
And VHS will kill the movie industry.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
I have no moral problem with pirating ring tones onto my cell phone.
Ringtones, THE way to get your music out there if you're a mediocre musician with no originality at all...
After all, did you ever hear an original ringtone...?
The way to corrupt a youth is to teach him to hold in higher value them who think alike than those who think differently
The music industry may be able to make some money off ring tones that are distributed commercially. However, I seriously doubt that they can prevent you from programming whatever ring tones you like into your phone. And many phones now have digital audio recording of ring tones, so, at least technically, you can simply record whatever ring tone you like from whatever source you like, including another phone.
Everything else seems to have a patent, why not these :-)
What we see depends on mainly what we look for. -- John Lubbock Now search for that bug slave!
Isn't there any software to let someone make their own melody? Then all we would need is the sheet music, or our own ear. The record companies have the rights to the sheet music I would guess, but they must not have any ownership if I listen to the radio and transcribe it myself.
What then would be their rights if users began to share their own renditions of top 40 songs for free. I would say it would be analogous to my band making a cover of a top forty song, then allowing people to download my cover mp3 for free... is that illeagal too?
...given the unabashed greed of the music industry, we'll probably have to pay every time our cell phones ring when a copyrighted ringtone is used.
"Quick! Answer it on the first ring or it's another dollar to the RIAA!"
~Philly
I can't describe why I think it's ghetto, but I do.
Blar.
I'm slowly veering off on a tangent, but I think I'm actually impressed with the music industry - haven't decided yet whether or not that's a good thing. Now that technology can make music free (and available), why not make it omnipresent as well? Commercially, music is already tied to fashion and social identity. What about a signature song that uniquely identifies you? Sure, you can put it on your cell phone...or better still, what if *your* song played every time you called someone else? (Throw this onto other suitable appliances as you will.) For me, someone who wants to be accompanied by a walking bass line at all times, this would be a perk. If you had the money, you could even pay someone to write you that special, identifying song. Maybe the musicians and techno geeks out there should get a piece of this - I'd love to write my own ringtone and put it on my phone, and I doubt I'm the only one. Offer the wireless companies this customization at a less exorbitant rate than the RIAA would, and you'd have a pretty nice offer.
.sig
The music industry said cassete tapes, cd burners, and mp3s was killing them. (Yet they are still around and making billions) Now they say ringtones will save them. That's different.
I don't think asking for royalties is greedy. What IS greedy is charging customers up the wazzoo and only giving the artist pocket change. That is greed.
Therefore, someone could create a comprehensive database of all possible ringtone combinations, copyright it, and publish it.
Then sue the RIAA for infringement.
ho ho ho
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
You'll have to put up with the imperial march every time some random asshole wants to call you. I like the idea of theme music, I used to have IRC scripts that played music in the background when certain people joined, but widespread use of this would be bad. Keep it for the geeks, kill off everyone else.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
"Ownership" is a legal concept
.don't tell the objectivists that. They call that "Stolen Concept".
sssshhhh. .
Legally, maybe; morally, definitely not piracy.
This idea was invented by Shampoo.
I live in the UK where cellphones are very big, it's pretty much reached mass penetration now. Everyage group has mobile phones, even my grandmother has! In the UK a couple of years back pre-pay phones took off big style and there was a very big price war with handsets going for as little as $45 with no contract. Now.. the companies are finding it very difficult due to the amount of phones that have been sold people are not as keen to upgrade them as they would like. Except for the geek/uber stylish crowd everyone is pretty happy with their handsets. Now, because the lack of handsets being sold the mobile phone companies are in trouble due to: Paying ££££ billions to the uk goverment so they can have the spectrum for 3g phones. Vast market penetration of mobile phones already and a majority are not willing to upgrade Lot of people on pre-pay and using phones for "emergency use only", operators find it hard to break even. So...... all the networks are betting their bottom line on things like ring tones, downloadable screensavers (!!), logo graphics and picture messaging. Already ringtones are the such like have boosted profits in the shorterm, but I think picture messaging will (hopefully) be the saviour ... or job cuts abound :)
So we need subwoofers for cell phones. Or at least speakers that can go down to 100Hz or so, to get rid of that tinny sound. Of course, you need some high notes so people can find the cellphone; with nothing but bass, the wavelength is too long for localization.
Can someone please explain why the music labels feel that they deserve to get any cash for these ring tones ? I am not a copyright lawyer, but I have been connected with most of the arguments.
AFAIK this is a classic example of a (remotely) derived work, and lets face it a phone going dee-da-da-dee-da is not in really remotely related to or produced from the actual music that they phone melody makers are trying to reproduce.
The ring tones don't use any samples from the music and the music composition is totally different, both through different timing of the notes and through playing only one (or a couple) of notes at a time. Therefore the person who makes the phone ring tone is making a completely new piece of work and shouldn't need to give any cash for the permission to distribute it.
The only thing that you could even try and argue is under copyright is the songs name, which would/should get laughed out of any court.
So although it looks like a nice revenue stream for the music industry, why should they get any cash ?
"Free software as in beer, copy protection as in racket" - Telsa Gwynne
Another great example of reducio ad absurdum - taking something to its absurd extreme. Or they could be simply making fun of the international copyright system.
Cue The Sun...
where they can compose their own tunes
What do the National Music Publishers Association/Harry Fox Agency and its foreign equivalents have to say about the unauthorized "composing" and subsequent public performance of popular copyrighted tunes on a cellphone? Few phone subscribers have the musical ability to compose completely original ring tones, and fewer still have the ability to warrant that such ring tones are actually original and not unconsciously plagiarized.
Will I retire or break 10K?
It's true. No one cares about cell phones anymore unless it's in a movie theater. Or if the person using said cell phone is talking too loud. Like that bitch on the T that time. But then they're just retards and it's not the cell phone's fault.
The record companies have the rights to the sheet music I would guess
That's true if the record company and the music publisher are owned by the same conglomerate, such as Warner Bros. Records and Warner Chappell Music (owner of "happy birthday to you") both owned by Warner Communications, a unit of AOL Time Warner Inc.
but they must not have any ownership if I listen to the radio and transcribe it myself.
No matter how you hear a copyrighted musical work, it's still copyrighted. Unlike with computer program copyright, there's no way to "clean-room reverse engineer" around music copyright. Even if you only unconsciously plagiarize a copyrighted musical work, you're still liable under USA copyright law.
Will I retire or break 10K?
The Nokia Ringtone Composer (part of this package here for the 3360) allows you to compose ringtones and send them via IR. You can also import MIDI songs and play with them from there... I'm sure there are more tools on Nokia's site, but these are the only ones I have experience with. These are great, though. Ringtones, sync with Outlook, full phone backup, etc, all over IR.
Yes.
DNA just wants to be free...
Envisional, a UK-based Internet monitoring company, even goes so far as to claim that "Illegal downloads of mobile ringtones costs music industry $1million per day ". However, in all fairness, that article does mention that the estimates they talk about are rough, since "Reliable figures on the total ringtone market are very hard to come by...but there is no doubt as to the scale of the problem. This is another Napster in the making."
The Wknd Sessions - Malaysian and South East Asia independent music
It occurs to me that there are a finite set of possible ring tone combinations
Yes. However, even if you limit it to 16 notes of 12 pitches (do through sol in the next octave, or do chromatically through ti in the same octave) and short, medium, or long duration, you get 36^16 possible notes, on the order of 10^25 or 2^83. That's possibly several zillion times more information than exists in all the libraries of all the congresses of all the countries of all the planets in our galaxy.
However, copyright law does consider some partial melody matches to constitute infringing misappropriation. Look at an essay I wrote about the "Yes! We have no bananas!" case and musical combinatorics that argues that there exist fewer than fifty thousand melodies that a judge (who is not a musician) would consider distinct.
Therefore, someone could create a comprehensive database of all possible ringtone combinations
That's been tried with telephone numbers.
Will I retire or break 10K?
5 cents a minute for the call and 50 cents a minute to pay the royalty. Music industry I hope you choke to death on your own greediness.
"It's finally easier to buy music than to steal it," Samit said.
Could be because the ring tones are (a)Cheaper priced (~$1 or less; way cheaper than musicnet and pals), and (b) aren't restrictive as hell. Some do expire after X amount of days though. This coming from a PCS Vision user. May be different with AT&T, Cingular and whatnot. Nice to know that big-wig music execs still think their customers are thieves. Asswipes.
Who cares about the music _industry_, who's going to save music?
'Nuff said.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Free local? what? where I live I still can't get anything cheaper than $35, most of which is taxes... and cellular alternatives are MUCH cheaper
...long distance is probably more important to consumers than local, and as it turns out that's dirt cheap in the US too... thanks to competition.
Now about cell phones. It is different in the US because people live different:
In the US people move out early on, in Japan and most of Europe yound people have more economic hurdles to deal with and stay home longer... if you want to keep the parents out of the social life you want a cell phone.
Outside of the US people spend more time outside of their houses (and even less watching TV)... this translates to less land line usage and more cell phone usage. Outside of the US telecom is highly regulated/government run; except cellular, which is usually quite competitive... furthermore infastructure is quite a bit cheaper for wireless...
We are behind in the US because we don't care all that much about elegance or simplicity, bigger is better and the more the better, in other words we are mostly gluttons. Consider the cars we drive, the food we eat and how we dress.
A smaller phone is not very likely to be perceived as being better, here in the US. Put some beazzler jewels on them, and a "Polo" label on them and then they'll move.
Ring tones have become big business in the past year, especially in Europe and Japan, where consumers spent about $1 billion to have their phones ring with shrill electronic versions of their favorite tunes.
Holy crap! Talk about a niche market! After this, why not ring tones for your land-line phones? At the bank I worked at we had Cisco VoIP phones that featured a ring tone that spoke, and I am not making this up, "Are you there?" Imagine picking up the phone after the third ring and answering, "YES!" How would you like to hear that all day?
My favorite ring tone is vibrate.
what is the difference between me playing a tune on my piano at home (presuming that I've legally bought the music sheet) or me playing it on my phone?
Subject to the fair use doctrine and some other exceptions, the owner of copyright in a musical work has the exclusive right to perform the work publicly (17 USC 106). Playing a ringtone is potentially a public performance; playing a song on a musical instrument when nobody outside your family unit is present is not (17 USC 101 definition of "publicly").
Will I retire or break 10K?
Is there an easy way to load custom ringtones onto a Nokia 6120i?
Now I believe that one of the specific "fair use" exclusions to copyright is for reporting purposes.
:-)
In such cases of course, the excerpted piece of otherwise copyrighted material must only be a small percentage of the original work.
This allows one newspaper report to quote a few lines from a competing publication without fear of breaching their copyright.
So what's wrong with the claim that turning 10 seconds or so of a top-40 song into a ring-tone isn't also covered by this "fair use" exclusion because it's only a tiny percentage of the original work and it's *reporting* that someone has called your cellphone?
It would certainly be an interesting sharkfight if someone decided to test it out in the courts
What if you own the CD - should you pay again to listen to a degraded version?
Interestingly enough, copyright law in New Zealand is about to undergo a bit of a shake-up that would have an effect on this.
At present it's illegal to make *any* copy of any disk you own -- that's right, there's no fair use provision here.
However, the government (in an uncharacteristic exhibition of wisdom) appears to have decided that it makes sense to allow people to copy for the purpose of "format shifting" -- ie: from CD to MP3 or from CD to tape, etc.
This would create a very interesting situation where someone already had a specific CD but chose to download the MP3 version of its contents from a P2P network rather than rip it themselves. Under the proposed new law, this could be considered a completely legal act.
To make the matter even more ridiculous -- the proposed changes appear to have some DMCA-like provisions that prohibit the cracking of copy-protection schemes. So, if you've just bought a new CD which is copy protected -- it would be legal to download an MP3 version from the Net but illegal to rip it yourself.
Don't ya just love politicians and the laws they make?
Oh yeah, and this is a very likely scenario, given that EMI Australia has announced that it will be copy-protecting *all* its disks as of next year.
And "we, the people" have nothing at all to do with deciding where ownership ends and greed begins. Ownership of something is a real, legal, fact.
You are fucking daft. Ownership is a legal fact. You admit to it, but you say we the people have nothing to do with deciding where it ends and begins, which is wrong! If you erase all of the laws, I own nothing. Not a thing. Now, I may possess some things, but I have no indefenite control on them. They are only mine until someone big enough to take them away does. Under U.S. law, however, if someone big walks up and takes my keyboard away it is still mine. I still own it no matter what happens to it from there.
All I want is my car alarm to scream out, ala James Brown "HEY HEY HEY HEY HEY"
My phone's ring is The Liberty Bell March, also known as the theme to Monty Python's Flying Circus. It came built in to my phone. I don't confuse my phone ringing with anybody elses, and I get a secret little geek thrill every time my phone rings.
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
The music industry is a manufactured facade of greedy executives. More money allows them to waste it faster. I don't feel sorry for them one bit.
It's probably the fastest growth area since it's a new market, duh.
"I made two videophone vidi-rings for Tool! It's their fastest growing market!"
With the compentency of the New Zealand government I wouldn't be surprised if Telecom somehow managed to convince them they need to get royalities for those damn annoying tunes!
Samit's got a good point there. Integrate cell phone and mp3 player, allow musicians to easily set up a pay-per-file DoCoMo-like service that charges to your phone bill, and the whole thing might just work to cut out the record company and distribution middlemen and replace them with a network provider.
In the great CONS chain of life, you can either be the CAR or be in the CDR.
...Great... Now not only will I have to worry about what people think of me when my phone goes off, I also have to worry about what they will think of my taste in music. Just give me a good old boring ring and forget the whole d@mn business.
Fucking Morons
Blogging because I can...
Sure, these ring tones are inspired by original tunes, but the process of producing them is not an electronic algorithm. An artist (perhaps of dubious talents) has to "compose" these ringtones so that they sound right.
Ringtones technically are not degraded versions of original sound files; they are compositions "inspired" by other sound files.
Your CD licenses don't cover these ringtone compositions, however derivative they may be.
blog
...but this report thinks otherwise. The report says that the 39% share of ringtons/logos in the mobile market in 2002 will drop to just 2.7% in 2005, due to competition from MMS and J2ME. Just another view.
Assuming you're not in a space where noise would be a problem, having a personalized ringtone helps users distinguish their ringing phones from others'.
Whenever I'm in a public space and I hear the "Nokia" ring, I often see 4 or 5 people going for their phones. If those had people personalized their ringtones, they might have been able to save themselves a bit of mad scrambling.
(FWIW, when I'm in public, my cellphone is set to vibrate. No confusion for me.)
blog
The ring tones don't use any samples from the music and the music composition is totally different, both through different timing of the notes and through playing only one (or a couple) of notes at a time. Therefore the person who makes the phone ring tone is making a completely new piece of work and shouldn't need to give any cash for the permission to distribute it.
Re-read that paragraph.
If a ringtone's "musical composition is totally different" from an existing musical work then, by definition, it doesn't sound the same. However, what we're talking about is works that do sound the same.
Note, there is a distinct difference between "identical" and "the same".
When I was a kid, I could play John William's Star Wars theme tune on my tinny Casio keyboard. Sure, it wasn't "identical" - nobody was ever going to mistake my performance on a kid's toy with that of a full, professional orchestra - but it was "the same" as far as any listener was concerned. My friends and family were impressed I could play Star Wars and, to a 6 year-old kid, that was all that mattered.
However, if I had tried to sell recordings of my rendition of the tune as an original work then the corporate lawyers representing John Williams (or his record label) would have stomped all over me, and rightly so. I would have been infringing on the copyright of an established artist, pure and simple.
The same is true today, and not just in the arts world - just because I could create a close (but not identical) copy of the classic Coca-Cola bottle that doesn't give me the right to use it commercially packaging my own brand of cola or other beverage.
Bottom line: there is a world of difference between composing an original work (even one that is inspired by or draws on previous works) and a simple reproduction of it, no matter how basic. (I won't even bother expanding on the argument that the next generation of phones that support polyphonic ringtones can produce tunes that are as good as 128kb/s MP3s.)
If it walks like a duck, sounds like a duck and acts like a duck, then it's pretty likely to be a duck. Similarly, if a ringtone sounds like Run DMC's Walk This Way, The Prodigy's Firestarter, or whatever, then the same rule applies.
Finally, your assertion that "the only thing that you could even try and argue is under copyright is the songs name, which would/should get laughed out of any court", is laughable. You claim to be familiar with the arguments surrounding copyright ownership but yet you don't know that you can't copyright facts?
If what you said is true then the record labels would have shut down CDDB and FreeDB years ago. And artists (or their labels) would be suing each other left, right and centre over song titles. Last time I checked, Huey Lewis And The News weren't suing Frankie Goes To Hollywood over the name The Power Of Love, or vice versa.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Yes, a ringtone is *way* too short to be anything but fair use. If a one minute, low-quality clip on Amazon.com (or anywhere!) is fair use, then a TEN SECOND SEQUENCE OF CRAPPY BEEPS is DEFINITELY fair use.
So tell those stupid greedy bastards to read their copyright law again before they start reaching for our wallets on this one...
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Since when did programing in Q-Basic (cause thats all you need to make these ring tones) start paying cash?
Preach on brother. I'm sick and tired of the greed in this country. Music is meant to be FREE. Free as in FREEDOM, not $0.99 tacos, dollar value menus, pay per download bullsh*t, pop posters, blood for oil, try before you buy plastic lenses, or any other corporate crap you think is real. Music is meant to communicate, to share, to be heard, for expression, for healing, for strength, for anything and everything. Rip it, burn it, scratch it, use it, sample it, abuse it, share it, pirate it, do everything you can to let it loose. If artists are not compensated, art will still be made. History teaches this. There are THOUSANDS of GOOD musicians in the wings that do not get the light of day because of these industry b*stards and their ilk. Do not trust nobody who tells you0333ic and money mix. Merry fricking X-mas.
There are a lot of rogue WAP servers out there, and if you know where to go you can download the tones for free, the only thing you have to pay for is airtime, which would be ~30sec-1min (or you can download them to your PC and then PC-Link it to the phone). Also Nokia introduced a MIDI phone about 6 months ago, some of my friends have it and have set up their own WAP servers with MIDI from which they uploaded the song (apparently the PC link to that phone doesent seem to work). But i must admit that the sound is cool! (Ever seen heads turn as someone's phone starts ringing Zelda theme in full MIDI at the top of its digital lungs?)
Here is the link to ONE of the MIDI phones.
Live for the present, learn from the past, and dream of the future!
Most fones let you key it in which is a pain the ass. Or you can format your sms messages with the ring tone already written and send it to yourself via email gateway. A ring tone is just a SMS message.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
The music industry is a business. There are organisations in that business whose job it is to look out for the industry's interests. Those interests are 1) being paid for work done (writing music) 2) not getting ripped off. Yes, I am the first to admit that there are scumbags and jerkfaces in the music industry, and I do not agree with many of the music industry's tactics, but the payment of royalties is necessary.
Next time the word "greedy" is being bandied about, perhaps we can take a look at the many people who insist that music be free, who think they are being ripped off by music companies with expensive CDs and roylaties, and who think that everyone involved in the recording industry is rolling in cash. Who is the greedy one? We are not talking about food, water or air; this is purely entertainment, and nobody is going to die if they don't get the soundtrack to 8 mile or the latest limp bizkit CD. You are not being gouged simply because you are being charged the fair market value for the product. That this arguement continues on and on and on is testament to the overinflated value given to the entertainment industry. If you think you are being ripped off, don't buy the damned CDs. Don't get the phone with the fancy ringtones. Turn off the radio and hang the DJ. Don't steal the music and spout that the industry is the greedy one. Don't put so much value in something that is essentially nothing, and then call the seller greedy.
RTFM; please, I beg you.
Who thinks that the whole mobile telephony market is the grossest example of feature overload ever? It puts dot-com boom to shame. You can take pictures with a cell phone, but you still can't have a conversation without static and a choppy signal. There's no such thing as perfect nationwide coverage, but you can customize the image on the screen. Who gives a flying fuck about playing a bad, not-even-midi-quality song for a ring tone when the phone itself works badly?
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
John Banks should marry Paul Holmes.
The first GSM mobile phone I ever owned (back in 1999), a Nokia 3210, had a ring tone composer which I could use to send ring tones I composed to my friends who had compatible phones. Newer 3xxx (e.g. 3310/3350, etc.) models even have the ability to resend tones that have been received. Heck, if this isn't (an admittedly primitive) P2P network built on top of GSM, I don't know what one is. With SMS chat services, getting the tones you want is not too difficult.
But then again, it seems that the United States is somewhat backwards when it comes to cellular telephony for some reason. We've been doing this in the Philippines for at least five years almost.
Odd thing for a third world country like us to have market penetration rates for cellular phones approaching that of the wealthiest European nations. Heck, I see street vendors here who have GSM mobiles!
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
Two years ago: Nobody would pay for this shit
Now: Some people would.
Percent incrase: ((Now/Then) * 100) - 100
WARNING: DIVIDE BY ZERO!
INFINITE GROWTH!!!!!!
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Ordinarily the pub would already be paying fees to BMI and several similar organizations to cover that. Basically BMI and friends go around to any place that has/might perform/play music publically in some fashion and demands money (this includes having a TV in the room with working sound).
Doesn't matter if you only play non-BMI-represented artists (as far as they're concerned, it's impossible to play music without playing something by someone they represent _sometime_).
But yes, so pubs and such are nominally covered. The aforementioned MP3 cover collection wouldn't be.
Same way you would for a song otherwise. For copyright purposes, the lowest threshold for uniqueness is four notes[1], but you might want to copyright something just a bit longer for a saftey margin (since you probably don't have high-powered industry lawyers to back it up).
---
[1] Yes, I realize at this rate we'll run out of non-copyrighted melodies in a decade or two... but I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. In reality it's not quite so bad because that standard isn't consistently enforced.
DNA just wants to be free...
Man that's hard not to interpret as a euphemism for "orgasm!"
Well, so long as your phone plays the Python theme and doesn't vibr...er...it doen't vibrate, does it?
: )
You can't take the sky from me...
Which obviously isn't very often.
With high-quality polyphonic sound, instead of the beeps, maybe the girl of my dreams will finally recognize the theme from "M.U.L.E." next time I'm riding BART.
... for any of the ring tones I compose on my phones.
I always put one obviously wrong note (or two) in them, just for kicks. Kinda like how Bugs Bunny would play them.
Someone's phone is ringing.....
Oh, that's DEFINITELY mine.
Wait a minute.. are you that jackass sitting in front of me that I was ready to kill with my bare hands whose phone kept on going off during the final exam??
What about parodies? A lot of parody (say, Weird Al) has music almost identical to the original works, but they don't even have to get permisison if they don't want to!
I personally think ringtones fall nicley into the "Parody" category, as almost always it's just kind of humorous to hear some butchered rendition of a song you know as a ring.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
There is already a P2P file sharing tool on mobile market, uses MicroJAVA (J2ME)...
My 6310 came with a pale imitation of it. No downloads required. No royalties either.
Slashdot: Where nerds gather to pool their ignorance
I want my car's arm/disarm sound to come from the subwoofer in the trunk. A heartbeat might be nice, or a couple of nice drum kicks. Of course, when the alarm gets triggered, there'll be a nice, screeching sound, but when I'm arming it, I don't need that annoying chirp. I also don't need music.
Synergy is your friend
* oh, come on, you remember Demolition Man. All restaurant jingles are for Taco Bell...
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
One of my cow-workers had Shut Yer F*&en Face Uncle F*&er as his ringtone - always made me laugh when his phone rang at work.
My current phone (T68i), like most Ericsson phones of the past 3 years, has a ringtone composer on the phone itself. This is a pain to use but the ringtone format on this phone is just text so it's possible to put the tunes together using a text editor.
The new polyphonic phones add a layer of complexity to this, and binary formats to protect against piracy :), but this is old technology outside the US.
You may think me a tired, old, cynic. I'd have to disagree about the tired bit.
The phone would also allow me to assign custom rings to groups of callers. This allowed me to assign a different ring for personal and business calls, allowing me to screen calls more easily.
You may think me a tired, old, cynic. I'd have to disagree about the tired bit.
I mean, Samsung already has a combo mp3 player and phone out. Why couldn't it have a control port from the mp3 controller into the phone, so that you can assign songs on the flash card for rings? And to have a small speaker (maybe kinda like the Nokia 9100 Communicator's or something) to play it on, as well as a combo headset / earphone jack. I can't believe it'd be difficult, yet I see noone doing it yet. Hey, I've seen some crazy interfaces. But a phone and an mp3 controller should be pretty simple. PAY ME ROYALTIES BEEYOTCHES! (that is, if you hadn't thunk it up yet ;-)
LOVE and PEACE! Merry Christmas!
-cheezus_es_lard (now cheezus_maximus by popular demand)
At least where I live. So many sites has been shutdown because they offered FREE ringtones of copyrighted songs.
So new pay sites came along, then then even ad's on tv for those sites. The kids love those ring tones, and those guys in the sales dept.
my sig
Will the music industry copyright the classic "Ring-Ring" ? Or has AT&T done it yet?
------- The last Sig. got fired.
I'm in the UK, where press adverts offering extortionately priced mobile phone ring-tones are commonplace, but I can always enter my own melodies on my Nokie 3310, and send them to other people. But, if I were to enter top 10 hits on my phone and send them to friends who wanted them, I presume I'm hurting the record companies' revenue stream a little bit, and therefore they'll probably try to put pressure on Nokia and the others to remove the composer, or at the very least prevent the user from sending their tones to their friends. Or, if they were really cunning, they could have my phone silently send a copy of the ringtone to RIAA central, who could try to match it against a large library of tunes. Should I attempt to figure out a song for myself and program it in, I get billed anyway! Paranoid speculation, of course...
link to the sky car
Surelly such restrictions applies to the bloke in the article too?
Kannel, a free WAP and SMS gateway, for all your ringtoning needs.
He was implying Europeans actually turn their phones off at the flicks while Americans don't.
The implication being that Europeans don't complain about mobiles going off at the flicks because it doesn't happen there.
The RIAA announced that it is expecting losses of $3.3 billion in 2003 due to "ring tone piracy".
I live in the UK and I gotta say I totally loath ringtones... They drill through my head, especially as most people have their ring volume on max deafening everyone in a 10 mile radius with a monotone rendition of Heresy's (Hearsay) last single. Also, whats the point of having a song on there anyway? Ur supposed to answer your phone inside a few rings so really u just hear 5 - 10 high pitch mind shattering notes before u press the answer button, its not like you're gonna sit there jiving to Five's latest single on the train...? Or at least I really hope not... Theres so many companies ripping off crap music and putting it as a ring tone, I really doubt theyve got permission to do so, but then again, the tones dont even sound like the song theyre supposed to so they probably dont even need permission. Wish people would just put their phone onto vibrate mode and be done with it... Its not like the whole world needs to know you have an incoming phonecall is it... Having said that, theres some phones by Sony and also the SPV that allow u to either record in sound or use MP3s to playback, this I find less annoying depending on the users music taste, not sure how good Napalm Death or Atari Teenage Riot sounds on a crappy mobile phone speaker though...
Nothing like hearing an otherwise beautiful Bach, Beethoven or Mozart piece mechanically and soullessly tortured over a $1.95 speaker to make me think, "You, Sir, are a jackass".
Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
Surely such restrictions apply to the bloke in the article too?
Yes. Such ringtones are provided pursuant to a license from the music publishers, who may or may not be owned by the record labels. From the article: "Fees are divided among the ring tone providers, cell phone companies and the music labels that control the copyrights to the songs."
Will I retire or break 10K?
I've seen you post [the "My Sweet Lord" story] over and over in just about every story that mentions music.
I just wonder how to verify that when writing my own songs, I don't make the same mistake that Harrison made. I wonder how to guarantee to music publishers and to independent record labels such as mp3.com that my music is, in fact, original. I post until I happen to find somebody who has been in the same position and can give a useful answer.
What would be a better place than Slashdot to ask about general issues of musical work copyright?
Will I retire or break 10K?
My phone has a very distinctive sounding "Ring ring..." (British standard) tone. That alone is pretty distinctive today where practically everyone else has "customized" their phone by changing the ring tone to something else.
Sadly no geek thrill, though. Instead, I feel like a telecommunications standards weenie.
I just bought a new Samsung SCH-A460 from Sprint, after losing my old phone -- it was decently-priced and had a bunch of neat features that I wanted to try out. One of those was polyphonic ringtones....... however, after much searching, I couldn't find places that I could buy / download ringtones from on the web.
I received a message back from Sprint's customer service, a few days after I had initially inquired about ringtones. Apparently you need to subscribe to a service ($4/mo, I think), which allows you to download 8 ringtones per month. And until you subscribe, you can't review any of the "titles" available for download -- which makes it quite useless if you're looking for a specific ringtone (Our Lady Peace's "Starseed", for instance).
Basically, I ended up buying a more colorful phone with a slightly improved alarm clock, infinitely crappier menu and panda "screen saver" for my cash. I'd have no problem paying for ringtones, even at $0.50 a pop, but I have the same problems here as I do with online music -- I wanna try before I buy. And as for monthly charges -- hell no.
The only thing that you could even try and argue is under copyright is the songs name, which would/should get laughed out of any court.
If you want to fight effectively for free digital information, bone up on copyright law. Song titles are not copyrightable. For example, see this discussion about copyright and songwriting basics.
The ring tones don't use any samples from the music and the music composition is totally different, both through different timing of the notes and through playing only one (or a couple) of notes at a time. Therefore the person who makes the phone ring tone is making a completely new piece of work and shouldn't need to give any cash for the permission to distribute it.
It is possible to hold copyright for a recording or for a musical composition (or both!), but these are not the same thing. So even if a ring tone producer is not sampling a recorded work, if their ring tones use melodies from copyrighted works, they may have to pay a royalty.
These ring tones may not use the same instrumental arrangements are the original recordings, but they do use the same melody notes (and "timing of the notes") -- otherwise they would not be identifiable as popular tunes!
You should try this out and download ringtones for free.
http://www.t1mmy.net/visionTool.html
I can't believe nobody picked up on the end of this quote...
'"This is huge," said Jay A. Samit, senior vice president for new media at music label EMI Group PLC. "This is the largest growth area for music companies and our artists"...But for Samit and the rest of the music industry, the most important feature of the new technology is that a fee is automatically added to the monthly cell phone bill every time a ring tone is downloaded. It's a critical development for an industry that has been severely scalded by the ability of millions of people around the world to download songs over the Internet without paying for them. "It's finally easier to buy music than to steal it," Samit said.' (emphasis added)
Hmm, do you think maybe he could take a clue from...himself? Gee, maybe if they make it easier for us to buy real music too, we (at least some of us) wouldn't steal it.
MIDI only requires a license from the songwriter, and those are cheap.
Not only cheap, but compulsory. [pdf]
I think the ringtone craze is kind of cool... back in the days before CD-quality audio I used to be amazed by the chiptunes that talented game musicians could coax out of the meager little 4-voice FM synthesis chips on the old 8-bit consoles and computers. Just like the Gameboy Advance has kept the 2D scroller alive while the high-end consoles are all doing 3D, I see these programmable ringers as keeping the old chiptune music alive in a way.
In the movie "Taken", Allison is offered the opportunity to leave Earth and join the aliens, as they believe she is not safe here, and would be better off somewhere else.
It's getting to the point where I don't even bother to read these articles about copyright; they're always almost exactly the same. Like a mantra.
But it just occurred to me that, even if the people who did "Taken" aren't saying it, I think I understand the meaning now.
People with any dignity should just leave. Just hope they don't come back here someday and turn it into a hog farm.
--------------Rev. C.C.Chips---------------- For the real truth, visit
. . . is it's own eventual destruction, or conversion into the book publishing industry. it is out of hand, fixing prices, and simply unresponsive to market demands these days. if it all fell apart, there might be fewer backstreet boys, and more musicians making better livings and owning their own works once again. . . . .
"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." - Rahm Emanuel
As the other poster pointed out, you are incorrect that you need permission. Note that Weird Al is very nice and always asks for permission - but if you knew your Weird Al history you would remember that there was some confusion between Coolio's agent and Weird Al, which resulting in Weird Al releasing "Amish Paradise". Coolio did not authorize that song at all, and was very upset about it - but it still remained on the CD, Coolio got nothing for it, and it sells to this day.
Just because Weird Al asks does not mean he has to.
Also, note the many many parodies put on Dr. Demento, broadcast over the radio - do you really think all those guys asked for permission, and got it? I don't think so.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I have an old Qualcomm 2700 phone (better than 7 years old). I have absolutely NO problem picking out my phone in a crowd. No one uses that phone but ME! I'm sick of all of the "micro" phones out there. I have big hands - I need large buttons to push! Even though my phone is 2-3x larger than current model phones - it still hides in MY hand. The RIAA needs to get a life.
With the outraging debate on lossy formats and mp3's quality damaging our ears, may the /. gods save us from the damaging low Hz of the low quality RIAA & DMAA copywrited ring tones!!
"Oh shit. That wasn't supposed to happen." - OpenBSD telnet exploration turned into accidental server crash
Glad to see SOMEONE got the reference... ;-}
Ironically, Monty Python chose The Liberty Bell (by John Philip Sousa) because it was an old BBC(?) recording which had entered the public domain! Talk about a great example of original, creative derivative work...
--- Corporations Are A Fad.
If it funds the music industry then this could (OK?, so it is unlikely, but that is not the point, the point is that it is possible) lead to free/cheap (legal) downloads of music on the net. Which (for all those people who haven't spotted already) means that all the people who have a phone that rings (or no phone at all) get away paying more or less nothing for their music!
I say again, let them have the cash. If you are stupid/vain enough to have a ringtone that sounds (loosely) like a chart song, you deserve to be fleeced of all your hard earned cash.
--
Harry
At this point I must apologise for the excessive (and mostly unecessary) use of the following two pieces of punctuation: ( and ), And also for the completely irrelevent use of the following two pieces of punctuation: , and . Thankyou for being so understanding.
.sigs are for losers
...I've done that (no, it was not at a university's student center, or anywhere in public for that matter). I don't actually use it though.
I just wanted to thank you for clarifying what Chris Dunn meant when he made the quote referenced above. At first, I thought, "Wow! Batman was at the mall! And Chris Dunn heard him!" Thanks to your insightful editorial alteration, I now understand that he only heard the theme song to the television show by the same name. The fourteen extra bytes transmitted to convey that information was well worth it.
Keep up the good work!
Yours Truly,
-Joe
I really hate signatures, but go to my website.
After you do that, look up, and check if the stars are going out. Not much point worrying about what happens next...
(xref the Arthur C Clarke short story.)
(this is not a
There's no way to guarantee that the song you just wrote doesn't happen to be similar to a song you may or may not have heard when you were 6.
Does this mean that if I don't want to go to prison for failing to have enough income to make payments on damages from a copyright infringement lawsuit, I should simply avoid composing and having published musical works that I reasonably claim to have written?
Have music publishers been asking you to make that guarantee?
Yes. Music publishers and record labels require in their contracts that all works submitted by the artist are original works that do not infringe on the rights of a third party. Here are some sample contracts:
Are you asking because you've discovered that you've unconciously done this?
Yes. Several times, I have wrote a song that I thought was original, and then a couple weeks later, I heard it on an oldies station. I have talked to others who have had the same problem, but they provided no solution as to how to avoid the problem in the general case. Though I caught myself before publishing anything, I'm afraid that next time I won't be so lucky.
Will I retire or break 10K?
{sarcasm}
My, what a brilliant idea! The music business could sue the oil industry for a share! Why, without new music in record stores, people wouldn't have to drive there, and their profits would go down! So, a portion of the oil industries profits are based on the popularity of the latest Bon Jovi album! They should get a cut!
Wait! Another great idea! A portion of the ear plug manufacturing industries profit is DIRECTLY RELATED to the number of concerts presented by the music business! Therefore, a portion of their profits should also be DEMANDED!
{/sarcasm}
Etc etc...
It is my suggestion that the MONEY GRUBBIN' SCUM in the music industry accept the fact that their high paying jobs are being eliminated by automated technology advancements and either take that early retirement or retrain for another line of work just like our parents and grandparents had to do.
The artists will see none of this money.
This reminds me of the fact that in order to record your own original music in the privacy of your own home on your own component CD recorder you first have to purchase a blank MUSIC CD-R that includes an automatic royalty payment to the music industry.
This should, in my opinion, be legal under "fair use". Of course today, even our language is defined by lawyers.
Forget free health care. Perhaps we should consider a free and fair legal system where the rich are forced to use the same lawyers as the poor. Oh, and just a note, where is the word "lawyer" in the constitution?
The departing division general manager met a last time with his young
successor and gave him three envelopes. "My predecessor did this for me,
and I'll pass the tradition along to you," he said. "At the first sign
of trouble, open the first envelope. Any further difficulties, open the
second envelope. Then, if problems continue, open the third envelope.
Good luck." The new manager returned to his office and tossed the envelopes
into a drawer.
Six months later, costs soared and earnings plummeted. Shaken, the
young man opened the first envelope, which said, "Blame it all on me."
The next day, he held a press conference and did just that. The
crisis passed.
Six months later, sales dropped precipitously. The beleagured
manager opened the second envelope. It said, "Reorganize."
He held another press conference, announcing that the division
would be restructured. The crisis passed.
A year later, everything went wrong at once and the manager was
blamed for all of it. The harried executive closed his office door, sank
into his chair, and opened the third envelope.
"Prepare three envelopes..." it said.
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