Polyphonic Ringtones: Calls, Court Cases, and Copyrights
By Philip Nicosia
Ringtones are big business. The Yankee Group announced that over the last five
years, these musical tones have sent people literally singing to the bank, with
a total revenue of $2 billion since 2001, and $50 million in one year alone.
The figures show how popular ringtones have become among cell phone users, who
download the files to personalize their caller functions. They can pick from
millions of songs, from the latest hit R&B single, to quirky sounds like cows
mooing, to the classical pieces of Ludwig van Beethoven. Technological
development has also made the audio quality of the ringtones much more
realistic. From the ear-piercing, tin-like sounds of the first downloadable
tunes, today’s music pieces have a near-radio quality. You could dance to it,
except you’d look pretty silly shaking your booty while taking a call.
Unfortunately, the realistic quality of the musical pieces have raised a few
ethical issues, namely violation of copyright. Since the sound of the ringtones
and the sound of the actual songs are so close, record companies are saying that
they count as reproductions—and because of that, they should pay some kind of
royalty to the labels and the singers.
In a celebrated case, rap artist Eminem filed injunctions against five ringtone
companies, supposedly because they had used his songs without his prior consent.
Some would argue that the ringtones only use ten seconds, maximum, of the actual
song. How long should a snippet be before it becomes copyright infringement?
Nokia representative Matthew Courtney believes that it has nothing to do with
length. "Every reproduction of a musical excerpt involves payment of copyright
fees to the copyright owner," he says.
Real tune, indeed! (by forestgum, Jul 14th, 2007)
