Apple, the RIAA, and Ringtones

pilsner.urquell writes "Apple's interest in defending the rights of the consumer has cost them a lot of grief in the ringtone market. 'John Gruber of the Daring Fireball cites Engadget, which reported that the RIAA wanted to be able to distribute ringtones of its artists without having to pay them big money to do so. It won a decision last year before the Copyright Office saying that ringtones weren't derivative works, meaning they didn't infringe on the copyright of the songwriter.' The piece goes on to explain the tense relationship between Apple content holders regarding ringtones and other pieces of IP, such as in the recent withdrawal of NBC."

Comments

Re:I never knew copyright law was THIS broken

[ArCh3r]

You are new to this country I see.

Re:I never knew copyright law was THIS broken

[Zontar The Mindless]

Pretty soon we'll need to buy one DVD per DVD player... Sssshhhhh!! They'll hear you...

Re:Fair Use Rights In America Amendment

[chuckymonkey]

We do not need Vin Deisel in congress.

Re:Art.

[arivanov]

They are art. The art of annoyance.

You can also use them for performing art. If they are really annoying you can score a 3 point hitting a suitable bucket at the other end of the office (filled with waste water from that kitchenette floor mop if possible). If that does not qualify as performance art the performance thrown by the person who put "The Winner Takes it All" by Abba as a ringtone will. Especially afer he has fished the phone out of the bucket.

Re:Am I the only one?

[TheRaven64]

Am I the only one that can feel my brain slowly melting each time I read a roughlydrafted article? Yes. The rest of us learned not to click on links to roughly drafted long ago. If you have problems remembering to do this, add the following line to your user CSS file:

A[HREF*="roughlydrafted.com"]:after { content: " [IDIOT WARNING]"!important ; color: red }

Ringtones - the most important thing in the world?

[clarkkent09]

I just googled "ringtones" and it came up with 112 million results. Going by the first 3-4 pages, most of them seem to be either selling or offering "free" ringtones. Some comparisons:

bread: 78 million
oxygen: 91 million
global warming: 80 million
world peace: 2.8 million
liberty: 95 million

But, fortunately:

beer: 128 million

Whew... close

Re:Weird, that

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, a lot of prominent artist actually HAVE a ban on converting their music to ringtones. If you have an Abba song as ringtone, you are problably breaking the law.

Re:Weird, that

[Anonymous Coward]

Abba

I'm sorry, I thought you said prominent.

Re:Weird, that

[rubberglove]

well, if I ever hear 'dancing queen' blaring out of a cell phone on the bus, I'm going to break something...

Re:Weird, that

[Mister Whirly]

"If you have an Abba song as ringtone, you are probably breaking the law."

Yes, the laws of GOOD TASTE!