License required for ringtones?

[Chris Abbott]

Um, I have to say here that actually Lagerfeldt is pretty much right, factually.

The situation is that the main copyright agencies in the world administer the copyrights to songs on behalf of the record companies: simply because it's recognised that if you want to cover a song, it's going to be a pain for everybody if you have to approach every single copyright holder (though you still have to do this if you want to use one of their recordings).

So basically the central copyright authorities give licences to people to record works belonging to their members: i.e. publishers and writers. If you want to sell ringtones, you have to join a scheme: this is because the contract that the publisher signs with the copyright agency gives it exclusive rights over the pieces. This is why the company can't give permission for free downloads: because it's already granted the exclusive right to make those decisions to the main copyright authority (which is the MCPS in the UK).

Anyway, so although you can start up a ringtone business without joining the scheme, you couldn't use ringtones which were under the control of the major copyright authorities.

I don't know why the Swedish ringtone companies are telling you what they're telling you: they ought to just join the STIM scheme and it's all handled pretty much automatically.

The situation with the Commodore stuff is that it too is also under the jurisdiction of the copyright agencies: not only the stuff I administer, but also Jeroen's stuff, Chris Huelsbeck's stuff and more. Why? Well, it's a double edge sword. The only practical way to catch people who make money at the composers' expense without giving them any is to join the main system: but unfortunately you can't pick and choose, at least for the areas of jurisdiction they demand.

Er... dunno if I explained that well.

Chris

[Chris Abbott]

I'd also like to draw a distinction that's very important in the music world, but pretty much unknown otherwise: the difference between publishers and record labels.

Publishers -> own the songs as concepts. Their job is to get their songs recorded by as many people as possible: i.e. do the best job for their clients. They make their money from royalties generated automatically by the copyright system.

Record label -> releases recordings of the sounds from the publishers and lives off the sales of that track, concert receipts, etc.

A massive generalisation, but it's generally the record companies who would be keen to sue (especially if you used their recordings without permission), whereas when you use the stuff from publishers they automatically get a cut anyway.

Chris

[Makke]

I don't know why the Swedish ringtone companies are telling you what they're telling you: they ought to just join the STIM scheme and it's all handled pretty much automatically.

What I meant with my post is that STIM wants such a big part of the cake that selling rintones generally generate very little profit. Often so little that it won't cover maintanance costs. I don't have the exact figures, and I can't be arsed to look it up because I don't care enough, but STIM takes out a static price for every ringtone sold. I think the company I worked for charged 15 SEK for a ringtone, STIM wanted something along the lines of 10 SEK / sold ringtone, then the company has to pay operator-costs for transfer, plus server costs. So it doesn't leave them much of a profit. (Don't take these figures as the actual ones...as I said, I don't have the exact ones.)

The companies I've been in contact with only have ringtones to attract customers. They make money from other services. That's why I don't really see how this is a cooperation between the company selling the ringtones and the record labels/publishers, as it's only the one half that's actually profiting (when it comes to cash) from it. And if you don't agree to their rules, expect to be sued.

[Makke]

Oh, this thread started out about offering free ringtones. STIM don't care if you hand the ringtones out for free. They still charge you for it, if they're aware of your operation.

[Lagerfeldt]

Makke, I'm sorry if you've had bad experiences with the ring tone business.

You state it generates very little profit but as I said earlier one single song I co-wrote earned £10.000 in ring tone royalties alone in one year. If you compare that amount to the more than £180.000 the song generarted in general copyrights, it's a relatively small amount but I am very satisfied to get a check with 5 figures from a market that virtually didn't exist a few years ago.

As you may learn if you visit my website (http://www.popmusic.dk), I do indeed know what I am talking about. As for Sweden in particular I've had three different # 1 hits there (Supernatural, SOAP and DJ Aligator) so I also know a bit about the business side there, and while you may very well have experienced trouble it is not my perception of things.

[Makke]

As you may learn if you visit my website (http://www.popmusic.dk), I do indeed know what I am talking about.

Yes, I know who you are.

Here's the thing. When you tell me that I'm "wrong", it feels a little bit like a politician sitting at the top of society explaining to the floor worker in a factory how his job is done. You've seen it from the top. I've seen it from the bottom. You've seen the money roll in. I've seen the money roll out. So you might understand, we have a very different point of view.

Don't get me wrong, the composer of the track should get compensated for ringtones. But when I say that I feel record companies and publishers don't see the PR-potentials, I mean (from my point of view) that they're more interested in the money than the PR. They really do nothing to ease the work for people selling ringtones, in fact they pretty much make it harder. And the fact that you're charged even if you give the ringtones away for free kind of prove my point. No one is making a cash profit from it, but the publishers still want compensation. Hence, they don't care much for the PR.

[Chris Abbott]

Composers get compensated through the publishers, who receive money for every ringtone, of course, and you're right that there is a statutory amount that has to be paid per download even if you're giving it away for free: it's worse in countries where the copyright agency feels the right to take payment for pieces it doesn't even own (NCB/GEMA spring to mind).
But the crucial thing is the ringtone companies don't even need to ask permission to do these ringtones: they just do them, sell them, and get charged a percentage. And frankly at the price they sell those ringtones, I'm not really very sympathetic about profit margins: there should be well enough. In the UK, it's 10% of the price of the tone goes to the publisher, who then should give the majority of that to the composer.

I don't quite know what we're arguing about, except that your problem is with STIM rather than the record companies. And STIM doesn't care about PR for record labels, just about collecting performance revenues. That's its job. I'd say its main fault is that it's been set up to protect the interests of the large record labels, and that it's incapable of getting its head round the concept of fan culture.

Chris

[Makke]

I don't quite know what we're arguing about, except that your problem is with STIM rather than the record companies.

Aye, that might be true. The thing is that STIM doesn't charge percentage, they charge a fixed fee (which is kind of strange). I just don't see how that is good practice.

If a ringtone is offered for free, I don't see why you would charge someone for making it available and still think of ringtones as good PR. The rules are probably different from country to country. All I know is that STIM are quite greedy, which is good for the publishers but bad for anyone who tries to deal with STIM, or anything that has to do with music.

Just as an example, if you run a bar where you have a radio station as background music, you have to pay STIM. The radio station ALSO pays STIM. So, you pay STIM so people can listen to the radio, and the radio pays STIM to broadcast.

Bottom line of what I mean:
* Ringtones = PR
* Free rintones = Free PR, but lets charge for it anyway, or have the free ringtones taken off.

As I said, the Swedish comapnies (that I've been in contact with) who sell ringtones don't make much money from it...at least if they're running a "legal" service.

[Chris Abbott]

First off, MCPS charge 10% with a minimum of £0.10p for ringtones, so they do charge a %. I'm surprised STIM don't do this, but hey, them's the breaks.

Second, I'm not sure about the PR value of a ringtone. Will someone think more highly of a group or single if they have a ringtone? It's kind of the other way round: they'll download the ringtone if the PR has already worked on them from other angles. Does owning a ringtone of a single make you want to buy the single? Or buy group merchandise? Or think more highly towards the group? If the PR accomplishes none of those things, then it's a waste of resources.

I've been doing this a lot of years, and there have been a lot of occasions when I've let people use stuff for free for the PR value: and you know what? Nothing much happened, except someone else used the music as an attraction for their product (and thus making money). And if someone's giving away products of yours, then it's a very thin excuse to justify it on PR terms, since if that person then doesn't buy an official product, it's a direct hit on the money you need to keep going (and in my case, fritter away on grand live events). Of course, it was nice to see the music enter other arenas, but basically it didn't really convert anybody.

I think C64 ringtones are an exception, however, for various cultural reasons, and the fact that there isn't an official source for them makes it a lot more nebulous situation. I'd still debate whether a non-C64 fan becomes a C64 fan because they've downloaded a free ringtone. Does it make them more likely to buy into the scene in any way at all? I'd say "no".

Anyway, to sum up: the value of most PR is pretty much nil, but has a direct cost to you: so you end up losing money giving your stuff away. Not entirely smart, however you look at it.

In a more general sense, it's very difficult to bring back C64 fans who have forgotten all of this, because there's nothing connecting them, and thus no obvious place to advertise.

Chris

[Makke]

Anyway, to sum up: the value of most PR is pretty much nil, but has a direct cost to you: so you end up losing money giving your stuff away. Not entirely smart, however you look at it.

Well, I won't argue with you since this is your field...and I don't have much more to say. I'm just telling you where I come from, and from which angle I've seen it.

[Chris Abbott]

I'm just cynical about PR generally. Perhaps it's because I'm so crap at it

Chris

[Matrix]

Ringtones - PAH - it wont matter soon anyhow. as I understand it, you can use a 10 second sample (wav/ 8svx / iff whatever) and use it in another song - for example "Vanilla Ice - Ice Ice Baby" the bassline belonged to Queen's "Under Pressure".

Also the net is littered with small samples of everything from tv show clips to small drummbeats and infomercial tunes; and now that phones can use wav's AS ringtones the companies concerned in gleaming cash from ringtones will be in the same boat as the RIAA.

A composed or converted ringtone, specified and sold AS a ringtone is one thing, simply having wavs on an electronic device is quite another, weather its used as a ringtone or not.

The days of the "model based" format driven ringtone are about numbered.

[Larsec]

Ringtones - PAH - it wont matter soon anyhow. as I understand it, you can use a 10 second sample (wav/ 8svx / iff whatever) and use it in another song - for example "Vanilla Ice - Ice Ice Baby" the bassline belonged to Queen's "Under Pressure".

That is not true... You can't use anything whatsoever sampled from somewhere else without permission from the copyright holder... Vanilla Ice got slammed BIG TIME when he did that... Another example is the Verve with their Bittersweet Symphony. They didn't make a penny off that track because they used the string loop without permission... I think it was a Rolling Stones sample...

[Tim Forsyth]

Matrix, I totally agree.

I've been mulling over where the ringtone market is going to go over the next 5 years. As we've seen the phones get more sophisticated we've gone from single channel beeper to basic 4 channel MIDI to the pretty advanced wavetable stuff that the newer Ericsson and Nokia phones (series 60) are doing now.

Where next?

Certainly Motorola are doing something interesting - they have a remix system that allows you to switch channels (there are only 4) on and off, and record these changes (with volume) to create your own "remix". All a bit soundtracker like.

But at the end of the day, the majority of phones already allow you play back wav's, and a handful do MP3's, like the P800.

Its only a matter of time, with technologies like bluetooth becoming more widespread, where everyone will be able to pick any bit of audio at random and easily copy it to the phone as a ringtone.

When I say "anyone", I mean the average kid on the street.

Anyway, what I was going to ask Chris is - does this mean that even though you have the rights to most of the artists C-64 material, the model apon which the UK ringtone market is structured means that some other body might be able to charge for offering C-64 ringtones for free?

tim.

[Matrix]

I know the tune Larsec, fraid Im not privvy to the follow-up actions, if thats the case the track ought to have been pulled. As for the Rolling Stones loop - fraid Im completely oblivious of that - but my observation is based on constantly ripped music springing up in modern music - most reently Michael Jackson's Billie Jean.

But also it IS a fact that it's so easy to put a sample on a phone as a ringtone and rule out the seller. Selling ringones wont be a profitable business much longer, and with increasing decay as more phones appear that have this ability. If you dont pay for the tone, theres no record of you using it and no way any company can track you down for their precious 10p.

also lets not forget - there are unofficial sellers.. for example, a massive library of wavs slapped on a cd and put on ebay as "THOUSANDS OF SAMPLE RINGTONES" £1.50 per CD - 1000 in stock. Also loops available from cover cd's (which are either already paid for or royalty free anyway) are a decent source as are programs like Rubber Duck, Dance EJay and Magix - Essentially its no different to a soundtracker library.

As WAV takes over - ringtones *in that definition* will fall by the wayside.