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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."
It seems that the current actions of the record industry are analagous to the papal authority during the reign of Pius IX. In both cases, science and technology began to encroach upon the ideas, or intellectual property, of the parties mentioned. Instead of trying to move with the flow of progress, they lashed back with extremist policy (The Syllabus of Errors, lawsuits). For Pius IX, this accelerated the demise of his authority. It should be interesting to see how these policies work out for the record industry.
_____
Thank you.
The record industry just did a lot of work to set up information toll booths, just to discover that there's a very easy and legal way to work around them.
It's just plain stupidity that they didn't see a program like this coming.
I worked for a cell phone company and they had a way to make sure you could not upload midi or wav files to your phone by hiding the file extension (not the MIME type) the phone will accept. Thus, to upload a midi file, you had to name the file something other than .mid for the phone to accept it. Of course, all is needed is a leak and everyone can do it...
...you make your OWN ringtones. Use a midi-notation software, then use a site like 3gupload to put them onto your phone. Much cheaper than buying them (the site has a whole bunch of ringtones too), and if you're like me, you can put strange ringtones that you'll never find elsewhere.
...kind of secretly hope that the record companies win this one, just so I don't have to listen to the ringtones :) Most of the 'music' ones (especially using MIDI) are just horrible, and once people start making them more frequently on their own, expect the quality to get even worse, just like good ol' mp3s.
- c -
You know, I've gone through several phones with varying usefullness of the vibrate feature.
Nokia 5190 - Vibrate function was only available with a special battery. I actually got one of these batteries, and was completly unable to get the damn thing to vibrte. (0/10)
Nokia 3390 - Great vibrate. When someone calls, even if it's tucked away under 4 layers of clothing, you'll notice. (10/10)
Nokia 8390 - So-so vibrate. This phone is much smaller, so I guess there wasn't room for a big weight. I'd missed several calls while in vibrate mode, so I usually had to have it set on a ringer-of-increasing-loudness. (6/10)
Ericsson A1228d - (Current Phone, since I lost my 9390, and they sent me this refurb piece of shit) No vibrate feature. No other features either, other then a very limited phonebook that won't even sort names alphabetically. (-inf/10)
So it's not always a matter of being considerate.. some of us just don't have a choice!
DJ kRYPT's Free MP3s!
I don't think I've ever pulled up to someone with a thumping car at a traffic light and thought, "Oh, good, I really like this song."
That is perhaps because you can only just hear the bass from the outside for the most part. If it was a good song, you couldn't tell from the bass alone. Lorrence Welk and Barry Manilo played the same way would not be recognizable either.
Phone ringtones have the opposite problem: no bass. Maybe if a car thumper and a phone played the same tune at the same time, you would get the full effect, and be Dancin' in the Streets.
"Yo, dis here Welk isa crankin' mastah!"
Table-ized A.I.
Once I finally got my hands on a Bluetooth enabled laptop a few months ago, I've been able to send ringtones to my T610 without any problems whatsoever. The best part is that I can use practically any MIDI I find online, which means I don't have to settle for the tripe that is otherwise "offered" by my cell phone provider.
Anyways, I've found that video game MIDIs, particularly SNES, make the best ringtones. The instruments carry over well to a ring, there are hundreds and thousands of available songs you can get online, and they're just all out fun.
So, I don't really see why a community like slashdot would really care that they can't put the latest Outkast or 50 Cent ring on their phone. There are much better rings out there. Just be courteous and turn those goddamn things off before entering a movie theatre or something, cause I can tell you right fucking now I don't want to hear Kefka's theme from FF6 blasting out of your phone right as a J. Lo-portrayed Samus Aran is putting the hurt down on some aliens in the next big John Woo movie.
Not that our phones are ringing anyway...
--
Is it me, or did it just get fatter in here?
Because when you've already paid for a license to a work, why should you have to pay every time you manage to do something else with it?
With my car, for example, I can use it to get from point A to point B. I can cut it up and call it art. I can use it as a door stop.
With a book - I can use it to make paper maché doodads. I can use it as a weapon in self defense. I can even tear out the pages and use it as toilet paper (I can think of a couple books that can justify it, too).
When you purchase something (Adobe vs. Softman - it's a Sale, not a License), you have the right to do almost whatever you want with it, with the exception (sometimes) of distributing copies, due to patent or copyright restrictions.
The creator of the work has been paid for said work. He has excercised his right of first sale. Beyond that, what happens to the work is not really any of his business. Just because it's IP, doesn't somehow give it a special exemption.
Furthermore, you should ask yourself "what is the purpose, the reason behind copyright?"
The answer to this question is contained in Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution:
"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts..."
Stifling innovation through charging for any improvement or new use seems contrary to the very purpose of copyright in the first place.
You kid, but we might get intellectual property reform a lot faster if they cracked down on every currently unauthorized use of their "property."
By that, I mean suing people who sing "Happy Birthday" at parties in their home, or charging people who hum too much of a song for giving an 'unlicensed performance in contravention of their exclusive rights' and crap like that.
Or, say, getting a drug patent and *only* allowing it to be used in places that do not recognize them. Or the same with patents and software; patenting your software, putting it up for free, and allowing *only* those in countries which do not recognize software patents to use it.
We all know that IP is supposed to encourage innovation. We also know that it is being used to stifle it; it would just be nice to be able to illustrate that more clearly with stunts like these, so as to help people who haven't thought about this much to understand these problems...
Just follow these simple steps
1. slice your songs into 10 equally sized chunks (10% each)
2. name them original_song_title.mp3.X where X = (0-9 corresponding to the chunk that it is).
3. Have each smaller file shared on P2P network.
4. Laugh at the RIAA
BTW, my own ringtone is a recording of an old-fashioned telephone bell... I don't inflict reedy-sounding pop music on innocent bystanders.
--Larry
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence
(I know, I know, don't feed the trolls, but when they're rated +5 funny, I can't help it).
Cellphones are tech devices and must be considered cool. Pop music is automatically uncool. When the two are blended... slashdot doesn't know what to mod it.
Cellphones automatically cool? What planet are you living on?
"Pop music" automatically uncool? Depends on who you are, I guess, but for most of us -- no.
The problem is... whoever came up with the idea of using music for a phone's ringtone needs to be shot. Music is designed as something that you want to listen to. People who right it are using millenia of accumulated techniques to try to ensure that when you start listening to it, you don't want to stop. And then some idiot answers the phone...
Right now ringtones for the song itself are running nearly 2.50 per tone. Now if I can buy the same song off napster for .99c then what am I paying for. Most of those tones are of the parts of the song I dont want for the ringer either way. This gives me choice. Something the RIAA cant stand anyone to have.
Here's an idea:
Record a phone call from the one person that you DON'T want to talk to. Use the stupidest, most lame part of the call as the ring tone on your phone.
Then as soon as it 'rings', immediately turn the stupid thing OFF.
On behalf of all the people around you (in the library, in class, in the theatre):
THANK YOU VERY MUCH!
The real fear is that people will make ringtones out of the CDs they already have. That process is nothing more than format shifting, trimming, and then playback when a particular event happens to the phone. Uhm... there's no laws against that process.
If your phone plays the exact cut, you may be right. But if your phone plays a bunch of beeps that are the tune, that is a "derived work". And we're back to the issue of how much is "fair use".
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 linked web page says that the North Carolina Department of Public Education believes that is the case IN A PUBLIC SCHOOL SETTING. For instance: As part of a class project in K-12 education.
That does not necessarily mean the same guidelines are applicable when you're doing it to replace purchasing a ringtone for your telephone from the copyright holder. The limits of fair use in that situation may be narrower.
Remember that one of the issues to be weighed in determining whether an act is "fair use" is how much it impacts the potential income of the copyright holder. We have evidence from the existing market that people are willing to pay over a buck for a ringtone. Things get even more interesting if somebody is making a profit by selling the tool, or (worse yet) selling the ringtones themselves.
IANAL either. I would love it if a lawyer or paralegal among our readership could post a pointer to an authoritative guideline or (better yet) a precedent on the boundaries of fair use OUTSIDE the educational context.
The fear [of the RIAA] is that people will make ringtones out of pirated songs, thus compounding the file-sharing problem while robbing the music industry of a new source of revenue.
IMHO that's correct. "Whack-a-mole" enforcement, no doubt preceeded by a strike against the toolmaker based on the claim that the tool is a piracy aid.
So for the reasons above we should be prepared for the courts to agree with the RIAA when the inevitable suit is filed.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Xingtone is awesome.
.wav or mp3 ready.
Here's how to upload your OWN TONES without paying for XINGTONE:
1. start XINGTONE.
2. have your pre-trimmed
3. navigate to the xingtone app directory
4. overwrite a demo tone with your new sound (keep the name the same).
5. upload.
Congratulations. You are t3h winnar!
Now you can finally have the guitar intro to "Where is my mind" by the Pixies, instead of "In Da Club" by 50-Cent. Treknerds can make their phone sound like a tricorder, or get beamed up everytime their phone rings.. whoopee!
Why a freehack? -- The audio quality is crappier than 8-bit audio, you may also have normalization problems (too loud/soft). Their demo is just 3 canned sounds that are decompressed onto your hardrive when the app is started, and removed upon app-shutdown. The app is useful, but not worth $15. Not to mention the fact that many people have to pay additional $$ to their mobile service provider per byte/kb of data transferred...
scam.
Remember: We only use recordable devices because of human playback limitations.
Posted by michael on Monday May 23, @01:25PM
from the we-miss-the-dmca dept.
The RIAA announced today that they have secured the exclusive right to the key of G-flat.
Previously, the key of G-flat was a popular key among independant Open Music authors, as the RIAA had neglected to secure rights to it during the Commercial Copyright Reforms of 2016.
RIAA spokesman Darl Hollingsworth explained, "After CCR/2016, the RIAA secured the rights to all keys in which music can be composed. Traditional music theory, dating back to the 15th century, stipulates that there is no such key signature as G-flat major. Unfortunately, Open Music pirates have discovered a way to represent the key of G-flat; however, G-flat major is simply an isomorph of F-sharp. The court rightly recognized this equivalence and the blatent theft of musical keys by Open Music pirates everywhere. In accordance with the law, the Supreme Court of the United States of America has assigned us the world-wide copyright to these songs."
While timing is expected to vary from state to state, all residents of the USA will have their CRMIs (Cranial Rights Management Implants) updated by the end of 2023. The levy for mentally accessing a song written in G-flat will begin at twice the regular rate, to make up for nearly a decade of Note Piracy. The levy will be scaled back to the regular rate of $19.84 per thought once the new CRMI software has been uploaded for two years. Residents of the so-called "Oil States" of Iraq and Saudi America will continue to receive the Western Culture subsidy.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
...just like you disparge producers who are trying to strong arm you.
Hold on there cowboy, where do you see me casting dispersions on anybody?
Did I assail someone in that post?
Producers cannot strongarm anybody.
They are the ones who need us, not the other way around.
They cannot force us to buy their product.
If it is a good product, we will purchase it.
If it is tripe (which is what most of the current music is, IMO), we will not.
I do not download copyrighted music.
I do not pirate software.
I will download music that the artist posts and, if I like it, I will purchase it.
It seems you have a bit of a chip on your shoulder.
Be careful you don't let it alienate the people you need to earn your keep.
Mind you, free beer (literally) would be nice.
Suppose Apple and Motorola team up to produce a cell phone iPod. It'd be able to play securely and legally purchased music (from iTunes, for example, or ripped from legally purchased CDs) at any time, including when someone calls you. You wouldn't have had to pay any extra money for it, either.
I don't see how this is any different than that, and cell phone tech is already at the point where you could download an mp3 to normal cell phones and use it as your ring tone anyway. (Why this hasn't happened yet is anybody's guess, but I would not be in the least surprised to see it in the next round of cell phones.)
One advantage of MIDI ringtones is that they don't involve the RIAA. You may need BMI/ASCAP clearance, but you're not reproducing a recording, you're generating a performance. That's far cheaper and there's a compulsory license.
With 3.5 billion in sales at an average of 60 cents each (according to the article) it's more like 11,098 suckers born every minute. The number is probably lower due to repeat buyers, but i doubt there's one sucker born every minute who buys 11,098 ringtones :)
How many cellphone owners are there in the world? Maybe a billion? Two billion at most? I know cell phone rates are higher in many other countries than the US, but still, there are only 6 billion people on the world, and only a fraction of those have the means to buy a cellphone.
So if there are a billion cellphone owners, and i'm paying 0 a year for ringtones, who is the idiot who's paying $7.00+ a year who is balancing me out?
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
I read the internet for the articles.
If the Industry is actually serious about this... then we need to treat them the way we treat other people that act insane and admit them to the psych ward for evaluation. If they continue on this path, the next thing they will want is royalities from you for humming the song or singing along during a concert.
If what you are reading sounds funny, or sarcastic, lame, or stupid
it is because it is supposed to be. just laugh
Yeah... how is moving a song from your computer to your iPod any different from moving a song to your phone?
My other car is first.