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."

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...

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:I never knew copyright law was THIS broken

[antek9]

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?

Well, somehow this rule seems to apply to Apple phones only. Most other phones will be happy to play anything playable as a ringer.

Note to consumers: Don't pay for ringtones! Help stop those stupid commercials on TV by making their business model fail. This might be one of the rare occasions where an organized boycott might actually make sense and work out fine.

Defense?

[ratboy666]

Your honour, I was just distributing high quality ring tones, produced by converting audio CD into mp3 format, and, as has been argued by the RIAA, the ring tones are not derivitive works; therefore no copyright violation has occurred.

We argue estopel, and the defense rests.

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.