This splendid idea inexplicably managed to raise a ruckus right before everyone fled for the holiday weekend: Every time a musical ringtone plays in public -- suggests the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) -- carriers should pay a royalty for the "performance," a cost that would unfortunately need to be passed along to wireless phone users.
Consumer advocates and online pundits, whipped into a lather by an unusually shortsighted Electronic Frontier Foundation, turned their amplifier dials up to eleven:
"This is an outlandish argument from ASCAP," huffed an EFF attorney. "Are the millions of people who have bought ringtones breaking the law if they forget to silence their phones in a restaurant? Under this reasoning from ASCAP, it would be a copyright violation for you to play your car radio with the window down!"
Exactly! Let's make the "violators" pay. How does a thousand dollars per "performance" sound? ... I say it sounds better than hearing "Achy-breaky Heart" in a pokey elevator. It sounds better than another tinny version of "London Calling," which stopped being funny, oh, a few million ringtones ago. ... And don't get me started on Crazy Frog.
At a grand a pop, how long do you think it would take before diners don't forget to silence their phones in a restaurant?
How long before we can watch movies without an alternative soundtrack from the audience?
How long before run-amok ringtones don't interrupt press conferences being conducted by the leader of the free world?
Not long.
I know what you're thinking, though: How would such a punitive system ever be enforced and isn't a thousand dollars a bit harsh?
Well, if we've learned anything in recent years it's that carriers have the technology to monitor what their customers are and are not doing. And, ASCAP apparently has more than enough attorneys on retainer to put some teeth behind the billings.
As for $1,000 being too steep: Vibrate stays free, people, vibrate stays free.
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Good for the recovery
Ring tone police could provide badly needed jobs and be paid for with economic stimulus funds. "Put down the phone and assume the position."
Pay fines instead of royalties
If "ringtone" players paid for the download, then that covers their legal rights, just as when one buys a recorded song (any media) and plays it in their home, car, or in public.
I prefer that these "ringtone" players pay a fine for disturbing the peace of others (that is a crime in several states), and even give a percentage of the fine to the person denouncing the crime. Eventually, everytime someone's cellphones goes off in a theater, everyone else would denounce the crime and get a piece of the fine. That would really put down the bad use of ringtones. No police needed!
Dumb
How will ASCAP know if I'm "entertaining" a room full of people at a party with my ringtone, or all alone in my car getting a private performance? The first thing people will do when they get a surcharge for every call is remove the ringtone (that they've already paid for), and they won't buy another. Then where will ASCAP's ringtone revenue stream go? Duh.
Yet another
Yet another bunch of whiny b's to put on the list of people that can kiss my @55.
Why not go after boom boxers!
I would like to see them try and collect any royalties from boom box players.
What about not accepting a royalty from the Telephone company because when I changed my wife's phone, they said they can't transfer the ones on your old phone to the new phone so you have to download them again and it isn't free. Yet they download the contacts and everything else. I guess the next answer is "it uses a different format then the old phone". Well standardize it and make your consumers happy not just your CEO's!
I remember when ASCAP came after the Boy Scouts for royalties on Happy Birthday, and other songs they sing at their meetings. Shaq paid them $100K. What a bunch of cranks if you ask me.
They can't get relief from downloader's, so they are going to go after people they can track. Also, who is going to pay the Telephone Company for the software they need to know when a special ring tone is playing on someone's set.
I have a phone that uses Mobile Windows, and I can use any MP3 to create a ringtone and no one in the Telephone Company knows what's going on.
Sarcasm alert
At first, I missed the tongue planted firmly in the cheek. My only objection is that some dim-witted bureaucrat is going to think this is a good idea and some lawyer with a dorsal fin will back him up.
No names
Ring tones in public can be a real annoyance. Not illegal but annoying.
I won't mention the name, (you know who you are) but I witnessed an enraged speaker in a classroom take a cell phone from a student and drop it in her Super Supremo Mocha Latte Cappuccino. (Or whatever it was. The cup looked like it could have held at least two quarts.)
The cell phone quit ringing almost instantly. I thought this was much more effective than an army of ASCAP lawyers and some cumbersome tax-eating ring-tone police bureaucracy.
Ringtones
Okay, cell phone ringtones are obnoxious, annoying, stupid, and ought to be banned. (Disclaimer: yes, I'm over 60 years old.)
That said, why download ringtones at all? It's a waste of money. If you have a cell phone that plays MP3 files (I have a Nokia 6682), just transfer your own ringtones from the computer with a cable. Download unprotected MP3's or rip tracks from a CD that YOU OWN. Transfer the desired track to the phone, open the file, and choose Set as Ringtone. Easy... and free.
People who waste money on stupid, silly ringtones deserve to be ripped off. "A fool and his money are soon parted."
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