Ringtones need separate licenses?
With the Apple event last week, I was a bit surprised at the ringtone announcement. At first glance, it seemed like a money grab. What, 99¢ for songs you already have? I don't get it.
Today I came upon the concept that music publishers consider a ringtone a "performance" of the song that must be licensed separately, hence there are actual costs to Apple if it wants to say "this is a ringtone".
For more background, read an "Ars Technica article from last year. The FAQ at Harry Fox Agency (the largest issuer of music licenses in the US) is interesting to read through as well.
Ringtones for 99¢? Apparently, we should be glad to be paying so little. Or being allowed to use them at all? In any case, it seems to be fairly simple to use some file renaming to make ringtones out of existing songs.
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And by the way... I hope you
And by the way... I hope you had properly licensed all of that music you were playing at the beach yesterday. That should definitely fall under the "performance" category (a public performance, no less). :-p
ha!
Nice catch...I totally owe $700 for a "dance hall" performance. Probably well in excess of 5000 people at the beach.
there are ringtones, and then there are Ringtones.
not that I thinkringtones should cost $0.99, but making a ringtone from a song actually does require some effort.
Starting a ringtone where a song starts is often not optimal. It's often better to start at the hook. Sometimes its good to make it 'loop' properly so that it can play forever and still sound like the song.
I've rather enjoyed making ringtones using programs like audacity
Again... $0.99? The publisher is making a killing on any economy of scale here.
Any word on whether one is allowed to use audacity oneself to hack the songs they've already licensed? likely not... still playing 'home DJ' and making the next best ringtone is a fun thing to do, whether for profit or not.
Performance rights license
Theoretically for 99¢ you are just buying the license to be able to use the song as a ringtone. So "making your own" would mean you would need to get...your own license.
Just complicated enough to make people scream in frustration.
I've used Audacity, and it's nice that it's open source and cross platform. Lots of Mac blogs have been mentioning Fission as a great audio editor.