“Ringtones, of course, are little 30-second snippets from pop songs that play on your cellphone when somebody calls. It’s an insanely profitable industry—to the tune of $5 billion a year, worldwide,” David Pogue blogs for The New York Times.
“Apple is selling a [user-customizable] ringtone and the full song together for $2, and… that’s a bargain… at least compared with existing sources for ringtone sales. Pop song ringtones from T-Mobile and Sprint cost $2.50 apiece; from Verizon, $3. You don’t get to customize them, choose the start and end points, adjust the looping and so on. Incredibly, after 90 days, every Sprint ringtone dies, and you have to pay another $2.50 if you want to keep it. Verizon’s last only a year,” Pogue reports.
“Now, I realize that it’s easy to get ringtones onto your phone (or iPhone) for free, using unauthorized techniques of varying degrees of difficulty. Thousands of people do ringtones that way, but I’m not even going there,” Pogue reports.
“And my intention isn’t to shoot the messenger by blaming Apple for the insanity of this pricing. Apple’s pricing is lower than any American carrier, offers customizability that nobody else does, and gets you both the ringtone and the full song,” Pogue writes. “No, I’m sure that, if you follow the ringtone gravy train to its source, you’ll find record-company executives. There they’ll be sitting, rubbing their hands together with glee and hoping that their young customers don’t identify the ringtone industry for what it is: the last great digital rip off.”
Full article here.
Someone’s got to pay for Middlebronfman’s yacht fuel, right?
I make my own ringtones, now, even out of protected itunes content. I simply run a 3.5 mm standard stereo cable out of the headphone jack into a y adapter. 1 side goes to my speakers, and the other goes to my line in. Then I can use Garage Band, or if you have windows Audacity to record the line in audio. From there I can add fade in and out, any kind of effect I want, and even select exactly which portion of the track I want to be my ringtone. In fact it works brilliantly on movies and tv shows. Who doesn’t want to take a funny clip from their favorite movies or shows and turn them into ringtones? I haven’t gotten my iphone yet, but I’m sure it will be easy to simply export with the appropriate file suffix and add to my ringtones.
I’m old. There I have said it. And old codgers like me (even when we are very long time Apple users and devotees, and therefore by definition very cool) look at the world in utter bewilderment that so much moronic activity can take place and apparently be so enthusiastically endorsed by so many moronic people.
And of all the utterly incomprehensible moronic activity one can observe every day, surely the growth of the ringtone must stand in a class of its own.
When I read that ‘the ringtone market” is worth $5 billion, I know for sure that the human race is utterly doomed. And I for one, when I see this cretinous behaviour, fuelled, I am so sorry to see, by Apple, have to believe that in fact we do not deserve to live.
I think music ringtones on cell phones are enormously annoying so there is no way I would ever buy a ringtone no matter who sells it. However, I like Apple’s move at showing the rest of the blindfolded public that they are bent over and not using any vasoline.
From the article, “It just makes no sense”.
So little makes any sense, question everything, very little is what it seems. The ringtone market is just one indicator of how sick the ‘western’ culture has become.
Had Sauron discovered the essence of power, the control of money, the control of the power brokers, he would have dispensed with armies. The Brits did it, well if you can call them Brits, when their empire of armies faded they installed an army of bankers and their supporters around the world, trained at Oxbridge to believe in their superiority and to defer to the ‘higher’ authority.
At times it used to be done with food, sieges and famines, that lesser used tool will be used again, the means are being put in to place, the scale will be worldwide. But at the present the people have been seduced with an artificial freedom called ‘freedom of choice’ and it is not freedom at all by any relevant standard.
Why do people even need ringtones, have they lost their senses, if someone familiar is calling do you not know already? If not work to tune the senses not work for the money to buy another ringtone.
Rarely has such madness had such an influence on the world and its people, uniquely the people do not recognize the madness for what it is.
MagicWord ‘doubt’, remember it and use it wisely.
@theloniusmac
“…the mere fact that Apple believes I do not have the right to install ringtones that I create from MY OWN intellectual property is detestable.”
I agree that it’s quite annoying that you can’t “officially” use your own sounds/songs as ringtones, but how do you _know_ that Apple “believes” what you accuse it of? I think Apple would love to have you put any of those things on iPhone if you like, BUT the problem is how to lock that feature down so that it doesn’t create an analog (or even software for that matter) loophole? Those loopholes make the Record Companies squirm.
There is obviously a reason Apple doesn’t shut down the “hackers” and smart users who create and use workarounds; but it’s best not to talk about that.
Fact – If you choose a song snippet to be your ringtone, it is very likely that you already own the song (because you like).
Fact – People were willing to pay another $2 to $3, on top of the cost for the song, to use a snippet as a ringtone. Apparently, it’s a recurring cost.
Fact – With the iPhone, that extra cost is only $1, non-recurring. And you get to create your own snippet. I’d define that as a “bargain.”
If you want ringtones at no extra cost, complain to the recording industry, not Apple. Apple makes money selling hardware, not ringtones. I’m sure it would have made it a free feature (for songs already purchased on iTunes), if Apple could have gotten to rights to use songs as ringtones at no cost.
Wisely spoken, as always, Mithrandir.
How come there are no pictures of me, Middlebronfman, on Google??!
@ TheloniousMac
You said: “On top of that, not only is being forced to pay for something twice an insult of Microsoftian stature, the mere fact that Apple believes I do not have the right to install ringtones that I create from MY OWN intellectual property is detestable.”
I’m on your side really but, if you read the rights accorded to you by the music labels it’s not your intellectual property at all. You have the right to play the music but it is the labels and/or the artists own the music as intellectual property.
Having said that if you were to take a snippet of a song for your own personal use (not to sell it to anyone else) and made a ringtone out of that snippet I don’t see how the labels can legally object.
Now that I have come to terms with losing my right arm in a work related accident, I’m now upset about the cost of my ringtones. Damn, happy one moment – miffed another. Life Life why are you so unfair?
i bought over 200 songs from itunes
i have 7 songs i can make ringtones with.
now that sucks
i dont mind paying for the ringtones, but i want to use what i want to use
and i cant
so i have to make my own
so i guess im cool until the next update
I made my own ringtones for free on my Sprint/Nextel phone. They tell you that you can’t, but there are ways, if you know how.
That phone was the best that they had to offer at the top, and retailed for nearly $400, with no subsidy, and a two year contract.
I bought two.
My plan is actually very good, but my love affair with the phone ended shortly after the honeymoon, and I’m ready to go Scott Peterman on the lousy service.
I apologize in advance for the distasteful remark, but it’s the only way that I can clearly describe my hatred for this awful company.
The only reason that I don’t have an iPhone yet is because I am waiting until my new house is built. Upgrades are expensive, and I don’t want the credit inquiry from switching networks. As soon as I move in though, I’m all over it.
top = time
…grrrr
Zune tang = MDN – ChrissyyOne
Maybe … well I reckon … just maybe that Apple is asking us to pay for ringtones because it appeases the Music Labels, who are, as we know, a bunch of evil bastards.
By agreeing to the evil bastards demands, or having made it a point of concession for negotiations, to appease the evil bastards and allowing them to fleece us.
The contentious point here tho, If you already own the desired tune, and having to pay for it again (for what is essentially only small beer money) the fact remains, it stinks to charge twice.
Does anyone really know if it is legal or not … I read here the other day, that it was because the tune was being broadcast in public, when a mobile rang out on a street, I had trouble believing this, what would this imply for contemporary boom boxes and ghettoblasters that play cd’s and mp3’s when people are down the park or beach, or even the backyard.
What is the legitimate reason to charge twice?
Ok after a quick squizz around Mac Surf, I found this story by good old John Grubber at Daring Fireball – it fills in some of the questions I had.
iToner is great.
Whenever my brother calls, Shatner now screams “Khan!”
I know, I know…
Well if you do consider the fact that Apple is providing the software to let you customize your ringtone the way it does, something NO ONE else does, I’d consider that extra dollar paid above the price for the song itself as being for the added-value service of tweaking the ringtone to your liking.
@Galdalf
That’s a little grandiose for a subject like ringtones, dontcha think? Who’s to decide what people ‘need’ except the people themselves, eh? You? I don’t see the purpose in ringtones myself, but I’m glad I live at a point in history when we’ve got the time and money to bother with them, rather than having to go out and beat some animal to death with a rock to live another day. Capitalism rocks.
I like the ringtone on my phone.
It sounds like an old metal bell telephone ringing.
Simple, no bullshit and it even makes people smile… compared to the idiotic “custom” ringtones people use to irritate any and everyone within hearing range.
If you have, say a 3 second rington, does it play only once or does it repeat? I could see sampling small snippets of music, say a 5 or 6 note trumpet theme… Miles or Bruckner…
Not that I am trying to defend Verizon, but their ringtones do not expire after a year. I have more than one ringtone I have purchased from them and have had them on my phone for over a year. Their ringback tones last for only a year, but that is a different service. That is what the caller hears when they call you. I just think the right facts should be told.
There is absolutely no problem in charging for ringtones. The problem is that people actually buy them.
Buying a ringtone is like getting punched in the face. Only Apple is only punching me 20 times in the face instead of the 50 times by other ringtone pugelists. This is a non-business! But I guess they’re are 5 billion dollars worth of people willing to step into the ring. As my Pappy used to say, “Whatever the market will bear.”
My ringtone is most unique and never fails me, it makes a sound EXACTLY like the sound of my phone ringing, in fact it IS the sound of my phone ringing. It’s never let me down yet.
MDN word – “followed” as in I didn’t never followed the trend.