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:So, it's free?

[Carewolf]

Answering my own comment after RFTA:

Derk Nek of Epplegacks explained that--unfortunately--what the RIAA actually won in the case cited by Engadget was instead the right to collect money for ringtones without distributing those fees to the artists they represent. There was no establishing that ringtones are not protected intellectual property, so the RIAA will continue collecting royalty fees, because distributing songs or portions of songs requires mechanical rights. Playing a ringtone might also--in the mind of the RIAA and the letter of the law--require performing rights.

Though it doesn't get any less fucked up by this explaination.

Re:Weird, that

[EvanED]

No, the submitter either didn't RTFA or felt like being misleading. Engadget did report that, but they were wrong, as the article explains in the very next paragraph:

Writing about Apple's iTunes ringtones, John Gruber of the Daring Fireball cited 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 (surprised?), and 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."

Engadget, known for shooting from the hip rather than the brain, didn't really understand whole story. From its report, Gruber concluded, "So if you have the right to play a song, you have the right to use it as a ringtone on your phone."

Gruber blamed a "complicated, confusing mess of a ringtone policy" on Apple, and suggested the company should have simply handed out tools to create ringtones from any users. Incidentally, that's apparently what Apple was going to do back in January.

Derk Nek of Epplegacks explained that--unfortunately--what the RIAA actually won in the case cited by Engadget was instead the right to collect money for ringtones without distributing those fees to the artists they represent. There was no establishing that ringtones are not protected intellectual property, so the RIAA will continue collecting royalty fees, because distributing songs or portions of songs requires mechanical rights. Playing a ringtone might also--in the mind of the RIAA and the letter of the law--require performing rights.

Re:I never knew copyright law was THIS broken

[Drathos]

You must not have used a Verizon phone before. Even if the phone itself is capable of playing any old mp3 as a ringtone, Verizon specifically disables this so you have to buy ringtones through their service.

Re:I never knew copyright law was THIS broken

[Mr2001]

Even if the phone itself is capable of playing any old mp3 as a ringtone, Verizon specifically disables this so you have to buy ringtones through their service. Well, they don't make it easy, but you can still put your own ringtones on. All you have to do is get a USB cable for the phone and download BitPim, which can easily manage ringtones and/or directly edit the filesystem for most VZW phones.

If you don't want to do that, you can even email the ringtones to your phone (your 10 digit number @vzwpix.com), although MP3s will be converted to QCP in the process and lose some quality, and you'll be charged 25c for the message unless you have a picture messaging plan.

Re:I never knew copyright law was THIS broken

[CastrTroy]

That feature may have been disabled by your cellphone provider. Cell phone providers do this stuff all the time. They disable the ability for you to load your own content onto the phone, so they can sell you the content. From what I understand, they make pretty good money doing it. What I would wonder is, if they provided the means for doing it, and actually provided a website with tons of content, couldn't they make more on ads on that website, as well as increased user base? They could also have related purchases. So if you buy th latest ringtone by the backstreet boys, they could also try to sell you the CD, or the actual song. Maybe free ringtone with the purchase of an album. Seems like a much better way to manage the thing than charging $3.00 for a ringtone or $1.50 for a 320x240 wallpaper for your phone. I guarantee that every 13-19 year old would immediately switch to that phone company if the air time was still at competitive rates.

Another great article and consumer's rights

[pbooktebo]

One thing the article doesn't cover is the fact that consumers have a legal right to "make their own" ringtone from music they own. According to this article by Sasha Frere-Jones in the New Yorker, consumers can create their own ringtones from music they own legally:

"Or you can do it yourself: some new cell-phone models can be connected to a computer by a data cable, allowing you to create master tones from MP3 files at home. However it is done, transferring music that you own to your phone is legal under copyright law."

source: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/03/07/050307crmu_music
By the way, this is one of the best articles on ringtones, covering the technical advances from monophonic MIDI to compressed audio, and the impact on the aesthetics of ringtones. I teach a class on music technology, and the first assignment is to have students compose and create their own ringtone (not by ripping from a CD, actually creating their own). I use the New Yorker article to get everyone up to speed on how big ringtones are in the world today.

Wrong

[SuperKendall]

Blu-Ray does not support any technique that can lock content down to a unique instance of hardware, not even BD+ can do that.