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."

Re:I never knew copyright law was THIS broken

[pushing-robot]

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.

I remember that. [wikipedia.org]

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

[phoebe]

My Sharp SX633A [smartone-vodafone.com] follows through with this, it supports Mp3/AAC/AAC+/MPEG4,3GP audio file/container formats but only the polyphonic 3GP can be used for the actual ringtone. The vodafone website graphic even lists "MP3 ringtone" support, but in fact its only for playback as music, not as an actual ringtone for the phone. Utterly retarded.

Re:Wait, they own what?

[rufty_tufty]

Nope it's more than that, the RIAA has literally got it's cake and is eating it. The case states (apparently) that not only can they collect revenue from ringtones without paying the artists, but that the ringtones would still be protected by copyright.

From TFA:
"what the RIAA actually won in the case ... 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."

All this seems to say is that the RIAA can prevent you from creating ringtones and can create them without paying the artists.
Every claim they ever made about being there to protect the rights and the income of the artist has just been blown out of the window.

Re:Entertainment Cartels Want it All

[TheRaven64]

CDBaby are almost like that, but they're being very slow adapting to the Internet age. They still require you to mail them physical CDs, for example, when for a lot of people it would be much easier to just upload their album, cover art, etc. For downloads, they don't need a physical copy at all, and for CD sales it would be easier to have CDBaby handle the duplication.

nice job Slashdot

[crayz]

Article summary quotes text that is then shot down a paragraph later as incorrect. Try this instead:

Ask Not For Whom the Ring Tones.

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 [bitpim.org], 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 [newyorker.com]
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:Mod parent funny

[Arabani]

they added a simple SHA1 hash to better avoid corruption if a sync is interrupted.

No, the hash was designed to lock out 3rd party apps, plain and simple. If it was merely for "data integrity", why design it so that a perfectly good iTunes DB from one iPod won't work on a different iPod? Data integrity does not imply locking data to a single device. Furthermore, SHA1 hashes that incorporate some hidden salt are not "simple". In fact, nothing about SHA1 is "simple" - that's why it's called a cryptographic hash! Granted, the salt was found rather quickly, but my gut feeling is that it was due to brute force testing of all possible salts, rather than the hash being "simple".

"Defending the rights of the consumer"? Apple???

[Anonymous Coward]

"Apple's interest in defending the rights of the consumer..."

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

Re:I never knew copyright law was THIS broken

[Lepton68]

Here is the thing: DON'T make separate ringtone files. Have the ring play the orginal file, the full song you have on the phone for listening to as music. You can set a portion of THAT file to play, you can set it to fade in and out, and to play when someone happens to call. Why do this? Because you don't need any new rights to do it. You already bought the rights to play that song. And you can play any part of that song you want, when you want. You are simply automating the process.

Do this, Apple, and there is no basis for charging for a ringtone, no need to negotiate rights to a ringtone, or anything else. Because it isn't a ringtone. It is the original song you have already obtained rights to play as you like. Yes, there will be a lawsuit. But that's how you defend it.

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.

Copyright and Ringtones

[stevewahl]

First, IANAL. But I do pay close attention to copyright laws, they affect all of us.

Second, the ruling on ringtones not being a derived work: it probably means that the ringtone is just another mechanical copy of the song, for which the record labels would have to pay whatever fee they've already negotiated with the artist in their current contracts, instead of being a derived work of a different sort which would require new negotiations with each artist.

I know that's not what the article says, and I haven't researched it. But it's what makes sense. (Yeah, yeah, since when does making sense have anything to do with copyright law?)

Third, if you have a song on your phone and a ringtone, the ringtone is kept in a separate file. It is a copy of the song, subject to copyright laws (because you've made a copy). This is necessary because the ring mechanisms in the phone always play the whole file, from the begining.

What we need instead is phone ringers that will use an existing, full length song file, but start playing at an offset into the file, and only play part of the file. Then you only need one file on the phone, and the whole question of paying twice is moot.

Re:Weird, that

[Mister Whirly]

Yeah, and they could call it "Apple Corps Ltd." and start a division called "Apple Music". I'm sure nobody would have a problem with that. Oh, wait [wikipedia.org]...

Re:Also largest non-DRM

[Wakko Warner]

Of course, someone was going to point out the DRM-free canard. Thanks for taking the initiative. You left out the fact that about one percent of the 5 million songs available on iTunes are DRM-free. You also left out the part where Apple secretly embeds user information in the DRM-free tracks.