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Cell Phone Ringtones Give Music Industry Another Headache
Alien54 writes "Xingtone's desktop software allows you to create mobile phone ringtones using digital audio files on your computer. As seen here, The software evokes the same ``oh wow, oh no'' reaction from the labels that greeted the original Napster. The fear is that people will make 30 second long ringtones out of popular songs, thus compounding the file-sharing problem while robbing the music industry of a new source of revenue. Many users find the technology quite cool. IANAL, but current copyright guidelines seem to permit fair use of "Up to 10% of a body of sound recording, but no more than 30 seconds". All of which should make for an interesting legal debate. I can hear the gnashing of teeth already."
Fair use applies mainly to scholarly enterprises-ringtones on your cell phone do not exactly count as "scholarly."
I don't know if they last 30 seconds, but ring tones of popular songs already exist, at least in Norway/Europe. It has existed for a quite some time, at least 5 years if not more.
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
Buying ringtones through cell phone providers is a joke. You pay $2.50 for a ringtone that will expire in 2 months. Atleast that is how Sprint is. You were able to create ringtones before just it wasn't as easy as a couple clicks. You would need to take the song in winamp or a sound recorder and trim it to 30 seconds and save it in a low quality format. Then you have to convert it using QUALCOMM PureVoice Converter. Most people that I know get "free" ringtones already from www.3gupload.com.
http://seanism.com/
Actually, there are now real-sounding ringtones which T-Mobile call "Megatones" and Cingular call "Super Tones" that are actually not MIDI-based files but real audio/voice recordings. Effectively, they're just media files suitably edited to fit the small timeslot they get for ringing.
We're beyond the MIDI stage... but still, selecting the 10 second hook of an MP3/OGG/WAV/Whatever file is something a consumer can do with very little software help.
Far from worrying here in the UK music ring tones are popular in the UK. People are willing to pay 1.50 (or more) for a ring tone, yet are not willing to pay that much for a single this has a few analysts baffled. It's probably all convenience, anyone can copy a single from the radio, from a friends CD, download it from the net etc.. but getting ringtones on a mobile phone is a bit more complex for the average person. As a result people are willing to pay for them.
It's not uncommon now to see adverts on peak time TV for ring tone services where you text a number with the name of a song, and you'll receive that ring tone.
A few people have made millions of pounds from these services. There not hush-hush services either, a few of these people have even been the subjects of BBC Documentaries.
Channel 4 even allow you to download ring tones from their site - http://www.channel4.com/mobile/
With Cellphones Europe seems to be ahead of the the game compaired the US. Japan on the other hand are ahead of Europe with 3G phones!
Come on - the RIAA can't make electronic distribution of music profitable but cellphone companies can? ...and by virtue of that, the particular mathematical transformation that re-encodes the sequences of acoustic impulses necessary to modulate the cellphone speaker to produce a familiar noise must be challenged in court? It's okay to use some speakers but not others?
These companies have a horrible time keeping their business models up to date... and inter-industrial consistency in argument seems to be failing.
?/o
This week on Frontline, arguably the best show on television, is titled, "The way the music died." It looks fascinating and, perhaps, even balanced. I do hope the bottom line is, however, that the music industry is a dated industry that refuses (due to some dumb executives) to adapt.
-Sean
As someone who cut and made ringtones for my own phone, I can say that several people already knew about this. What the program does, from the looks of their feature set is to make this available to the John Everyman, and make it easy to use. Sites like CraigGiven (read the FAQ) and the such have had information on how to do this for a bit now (Thats where I learned it from. My own phone site is at www.9xrnet.com/9x/sprintpcs with some old school game songs). But there are places like MyPhoneFiles that already have popular tunes available for download at no charge. I guess the program is really for the avg layman who wants to have some indie song or something that isn't mainstream on their cellphone.
The submitter claims IANAL, but current copyright guidelines seem to permit fair use of "Up to 10% of a body of sound recording, but no more than 30 seconds".
The submitter is missing the context of the part of the document he referenced. The 10%/30 seconds guideline is meant to clarify what portions of referenced works means in the top of the document. There is no fair use when the only purpose is your own enjoyment.
Whether owning the CD gives you the right to use this is a seperate question, but there the 10%/30 seconds rule doesn't apply.
there's this handy site I made,which will take any MIDI file, put it on a WAP server, and let you use it as a polyphonic ringtone, for free.
you have to get permission for that, and if you don't they'll sue your rump. you have to wonder if there are behind the scenes royatly payments for that.
WHAT ARE THE PENALTIES IF I DO SAMPLE?
If you have a new Nokia phone (IE, new model, not just new purchase), you just upload the ringtones (in MIDI, AMR or MP3 format) by IR or Bluetooth.
Considering the vast amount of MIDI, AMR or MP3 format songs out there, and for that matter the ease of creating one in the first place, I don't see why this is such big news. Unless, of course, this is a way to create monophonic ring tunes out of MP3s, which is pretty darn stupid IMHO.
I recommend Coding Workshop's polyphonic wizard...yes they also make a popular rootkit, but their program is pretty cool, it includes a WAP server for your mac or pc so you can transfer the files.
Sig removed because it was obnoxious
I'm not suggesting that makes an ounce of sense, but it's certainly not chump change here.
It's very easy to turn sample files into ringtones for free. For Sprint PCS users, the Xingtone software just creates a GCD file (more info) and hosts is on a website for your phone to download. It converts the WAV file to Qualcomm PureVoice (.QCP) format (which you can do using Qualcomm's free converter for Windows and Linux). There's more info here.
Building Better Software
I think one of the more famous cases was when Vanilla Ice stole^H^H^H^Hampled Queen/Bowie's "Under Pressure" for his hit (?) "Ice, Baby". He didn't get permission and got the shit sued out of him. He wound up settling out of court, and made everyone in the (at the time) new "sampling" style of music very aware that they were using bits of copyrighted works and had BETTER get permission!
There's a fascinating bio of this artist (?) on rotten.com: Here
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
My current phone allows me to use any mp3 as a ringtone, no conversion necessary. As far as I can tell this is becoming more and more common on new phones. With more and more phones and computers supporting bluetooth it's also getting easier to transfer them onto the phone. Eventually it's going to become convienient enough that people won't be willing to pay to be sent ringtones when they could just use music they already own.
That is perhaps because you can only just hear the bass from the outside for the most part.
Unless, of course, the asshat in question has the windows down (45th St in Ballard, yesterday, ~2pm), or is driving a ragtop (6th Avenue, Seattle, yesterday, ~5pm). Then you get to hear all the frequencies. Don't forget that a lot of these idiots WANT you to hear how cool their musical taste is...
Call me old fashioned, but I like a dump to be as memorable as it is devastating - Bender
Surely the point is that now we can compose our own music and download that, instead of the current pop and classical tunes which are advertised for download in every newspaper and magazine on premium rate numbers and have been for years.
But, as I pointed out in the ORIGINAL message, since ringtones have come into widespread use and that because they "entertain you," you leave your phone on ring instead of vibrate in all sorts of innappropriate places. You don't switch it back to vibrate when you walk into the theatre, classroom, or frankly, even the coffee shop.
I never said anything about leaving my phone's ringer on in places where it's inappropriate.
I seriously doubt anything has changed in terms of people's laziness (relating to switching into vibrate mode or switching the phone off completely) that directly correlates with using a custom ringtone vs a default ringer. There's just more people that own cell phones nowadays and most newer phones support custom ring tones. If custom ringtones disappeared overnight, people would still leave their phones in the loudest ring mode, not because they want the world to hear their phone, but because they're simply too lazy to remember to turn the ringer off.
Now if you really somehow feel that a default ringtone is less annoying than a few notes from a pop song, I really hope for your sake you learn to take life less seriously.
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DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.