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

I never knew copyright law was THIS broken

[jonwil]

Playing an audio file from your phone through speakers requires different permissions than playing the same audio file from the same phone through the same speakers in response to a phone call event... How screwed up is that?

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

[Professor_UNIX]

Pretty soon we'll need to buy one DVD per DVD player and they'll have some kind of activation thing where the first time you play it ties it to that DVD player if we keep going down this road.

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: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.

Entertainment Cartels Want it All

[Apple Acolyte]

They want to have their revenue cake and eat it too, and they don't even want to cut the original authors in. They are an unnecessary drain on the digital marketplace, a dinosaur of the 20th Century. Eventually these cartels will be replaced, since the goods they offer have little compelling reason to be sold in physical formats. It's a just a question of time before key producers decide it makes sufficient financial sense to bypass them completely.

Re:Entertainment Cartels Want it All

[CastrTroy]

Maybe Apple needs to be dealing with better record labels. eMusic sells songs for about $0.30 a song. Half goes to the artist/label, and half goes to eMusic. They're probably making more per song than Apple is. And the artists, because they are indie labels, are probably getting more per song too. And the customers are getting more songs for their money. That's what a song should cost. Although a song for a quarter would be nice. Make the purchase an non-decision. If you like it download it. With songs costing $0.99 they make me stop and think about whether I want to buy the song or not, same with CDs for $15. If things were priced cheap enough, like $0.25 for a song, or $5.00 for a physical CD, then people would just buy everything they like, instead of having to decide whether or not the purchase is actually worth it. I've spent more money on eMusic in the past year than I spent on CDs in the past 5 years, because I actually feel like I'm not being ripped off.

So, it's free?

[Carewolf]

If a song as a ringtone isn't a derived product, and RIAA can makes ringtones of popular music without infringing the copyright of the artists that means we (anyone) can also make our own ringtones of popular music without infringing anyones copyright...

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.

Wait, they own what?

[Aladrin]

Since when does the RIAA own the copyrights to anything? How can they possibly collect money on copyrights they don't own if they aren't representing the copyright owner?

According to TFA, they won a decision not in court, but simply at the Copyright Office. I don't see any links to this decision itself, and I don't have time to search for it with the insignificant amount of information we are given, so I don't have any idea what this actually says... But I can't see how the Copyright Office is able to give distribution rights other than the information that something is or is not covered under copyright law. They cannot say it's not copyrighted and then authorize the RIAA to collect money, and they can't say it's copyrighted and give the RIAA permission to ignore it and not pay the copyright owner.

Anyone got any more -real- information, instead of just a link to site that links to a site that claims something that isn't cited at all?

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.

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

[GeckoX]

What we need is for the Artists to revolt against this. It goes way way too far. They already get screwed by the MAFIAA, and now the MAFIAA got a legal standing that they are allowed to make money off of the artists work, but have no obligation to pay the artists.

These assholes, in theory, are supposed to be working FOR the artists. The ONLY reason the MAFIAA exists in the first place is because of the artists...No artists...No music...No money to collect royalties for.

The MAFIAA needs to be taken out back and shot. It's the humane thing to do after all.

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.

Re:Weird, that

[GeckoX]

Yes, but at whose choice?

It's one thing for an artist to decide they do not want their music for ringtones...agree or not, it is their right.

But that has nothing to do with the MAFIAA making money off of ringtones without paying the artists. This has nothing to do with whether ABBA is willing to allow their music to be used for ringtones or not.

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.

Also largest non-DRM

[SuperKendall]

You're talking about the same Apple that happens to be the world's largest seller of DRM-infected music, right?

Yes, and also the worlds largest online seller of DRM Free music.

Your point?

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!