Ring-Tone Barons? Japanese Record Companies Raided 181
PuceBaboon writes "
The Asahi Shimbun is reporting that officers from the Fair Trade
Commission raided several major record companies in Japan, including
Sony Music Entertainment, Toshiba EMI and Avex, on suspicion of
creating a monopoly for the purpose of maintaining artificially high
prices on... telephone ring-tone tunes."
iTMS? (Score:3, Informative)
mp3 as ringtone (Score:5, Informative)
The newest Nokia phones are able to use midi files or mp3 files as ringtones. You can load them via infrared, cable or bluetooth connection and thus don't have to pay a single cent for your new ringtones.
RedShirt
Yes, there is money to be made (Score:1, Informative)
I make my own (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Good (Score:5, Informative)
Not all carriers allow OTA (over the air) downloads of ringtones, wallpapers, or Java programs. I almost didn't get T-Mobile service because of this, but they were the only carrier with good reception in my area. AT&T (soon to be Cingular) is good about being open. I'm not sure where the other carriers stand.
Re:Good (Score:2, Informative)
Actually, phones are already available which play mp3 ringtones.
Google: "mp3 ringtones" [google.com]
Re:vocals? (Score:5, Informative)
Because they are recording companies.
(And to clarify, it's not just the vocals -- it's the particular recording, usually including vocals.)
The record company owns the recording, not the composition. To sell the record, the record company must licence the song from the composer (who is often not the performer in question.)
As an example, let's take the song "Remember (Walking in the Sand)", originally performed by the Shangri-Las, and written by George Morton. It was since covered by Patsy Cline, the Beach Boys and Aerosmith, among others.
If you wanted the Aerosmith version as your ringtone, you'd have to licence it from whoever owns that Aerosmith recording, and from whoever now owns the rights to the composition... but not from the Shangri-Las' right-holders, because you're not using their recording.
If you just wanted the song itself as a midi file in your phone, you don't have to pay anything to Aerosmith's label, nor to the Beach Boys' label, nor to the Shangri-Las' label -- because you're not using those recordings. You just have to pay whoever now owns George Morton's composition rights (provided the copyright hasn't lapsed) because that's all you're using.
yo.
Re:Good (Score:4, Informative)
I find this especially useful since I compose my own music. Simply export a mix to a MIDI file and copy it over. Instant custom ring-tones like none other!
You do not need Windows, as suggested in other posts. Dig around on SourceForge and other Open Source sites, all the tools you need are there regardless of your OS.
Personally, I do not like the idea of MP3 ringtones. It is much easier on the brain to hear a dinky midi of an Emeniem song a thousand times than to hear the real thing with vocals. I know, I'm screwed on that one. It is enevitable.
Why is the mobile market so expensive? (Score:5, Informative)
Because mobiles have traditionally had very limited software capabilities, they have been able to charge outrageous sums for mobile services. Instead of browsing the web you'll be browsing some specialized service with content created specifically for mobiles.
And the problem isn't just that the mobile operators and content owners do everything they can to keep it that way.
And even worse, people like Danish mobile analyst John Strand [strandconsult.dk] from Strand Consult are attacking anything which threatens this mobile hegemony by operators and content owners.
John Strand has been known to use his influence to try to make sure that today's situation with crappy and overpriced services will remain. He basically tells the press that "yeah, these people don't understand the mobile market and won't survive for long" if it threatens today's hegemony.
One specific example is the rise of software on mobiles that can browse the web instead of the customer being force fed what the operator wants him to. John Strand is using his influence to claim that companies that offer such solutions will never survive because they operate outside the "mobile food chain".
John Strand and his ilk are basically trying to maintain today's situation because overpriced mobile services are a good thing to them. It's a mobile market they know, and they are making good money by just being "consultants".
So yeah, mobile services suck and are over priced. Software like real web browsers is arriving to give the customer an actual choice and make it cheaper, but on the other hand, corrupt "analysts" like John Strand are doing everything they can to stop this more customer friendly development, and really fight to keep today's system with customer lock-in and over priced services.
Cartels (Score:4, Informative)
Just for clarification this is referred to as a "cartel" in economics terms.
OPEC, the RIAA, the Cali (cocaine) Cartel, all the same.
Definition of cartel from my economics text (from the glossary):
From the actual text:
Basically the group gets together and decides that they will compete but not enough to put each other at risk. No one member can do something that would be harmful to the group.
For example, this is the reason that OPEC collectively controls oil output and not just one OPEC country. They decide together what is in the best interest of them all, creating unfair prices for the rest of the world as suplus is un-naturally replaced with deficit. (as opposed to an equilibrium being struck on its own)
Re:Why is the mobile market so expensive? (Score:4, Informative)
The one service that I still find greatly overpriced is direct (non-WAP) data transfer. On GPRS, usage is charged by the MB since the connection is always-on. Typical fees here range from 1,5 Euro/MB (Telfort), 3 Euro/MB (Orange) to an unbelievable 7,5 Euro/MB (KPN).
My question is: how on earth can the hope to sell these shiny new broadband 3G phones, if we are to download all that "exiting new music and movie content" to the tune of 7,5 Euro/MB? Perhaps you are right again... since these days my phone/PDA can browse proper WWW pages after a fashion, they'll charge me an arm and a leg just to encourage me to stay on WAP.
meaning of polyphonic (Score:3, Informative)
Why Not Create Your Own with Ringtone Tools? (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, that's right, older cell phone models used to actually let you type the ringtones directly into them, without special software or cables, though that option has always seemingly been available for these types. Very nice, economical solution for those of us who want custom or special ringtones but not enough to pay a high price for them. Besides, it's not like these companies are making anime ringtones (Go Totoro!) available anyway.
Article incorrect (Score:5, Informative)
. . . or, rather, misleading. It's not "ring tones" in the MIDI sense, but actual MP3 clips of songs that are the subject of the raid.
In Japan, anyone is allowed to make and sell MIDI-style ring tones as long as they pay a usage fee to the copyright office. This fee is then paid back to the original authors of the song--but not to the record labels. There are something like 200 companies producing ring tones now, and the labels get nothing out of any of them.
So when the next wave--ring songs, for lack of a better term; MP3 (or similarly encoded) digital sound--came around, the labels got greedy. Since they own the copyrights on the actual recordings, they decided not to let anyone but their own group companies sell clips from the songs. The Fair Trade Commission decided that this was unfair use of monopoly, and thus the raid.
Unlocking cell phones (Score:3, Informative)
http://ww
I unlocked my Nokia 3650 last night using the second site's unlock code generator. Make sure to read the instructions and not make typos as you only get a limited number of attempts before the phone locks itself down, so to speak, after which only professionals with a cable can unlock the unit.