Study: Ring tones heavily shoplifted

Online sound snippets intended to help market ring tones sold by phone operators and other distributors often are illegally downloaded and used free of charge, a new study found.

Cell phone operators and ring tone sellers typically make available on their Web sites ring tone previews of 15 to 30 seconds. But almost 40 percent of cell phone operators and nearly a third of independent ring tone sellers don't secure the previews, which can be downloaded onto a personal computer, then changed into a usable ring tone, according to the study.

Almost two-thirds of the 100 Web sites checked offered previews that were suitably long to make a ring tone, according to research by Qpass, a digital-content distributor based in Seattle.

Ring tones, recorded sound segments that replace a cell phone's prepackaged ringer, are typically priced at $1 each. Shoplifted ring tones have so far cost cell phone operators and other ring tone sellers about $40 million in lost revenue, while lost revenue from ring tone shoplifting will total $123 million by 2007, the study predicted.

"This is the mobile and cyber equivalent of test-driving a car and then not having to give it back," Qpass senior vice president Steve Shivers said. "The amount of revenue loss to both the mobile and music industries is a concern."

Representatives of the cellular trade organization Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association did not return calls Wednesday seeking comment on the study. The Recording Industry Association of America, which represents major recording interests, declined to comment.

[R. U. Sirius]

Boring

Besides ringtones being totally boring, who cares? What do they charge for a "ringtone" anyway? Probably $3.00 for a stupid 8-bit sample.

[ballssalty]

Paying for Ringtones is stupid

Anyone should be able with a little ingenuity convert their existing music files to a compatible ringtone. Why pay? My phone uses WMA files for ringtones so I just convert any audio to that format and viola, ringtone.

I don't understand why anyone would pay up to $3 for a song snippet for their phone ringer.

[Filip Remplakowski]

Why bother

Who in gods green earth would pay £2 for a ringtone, when it just
encourages those annoying adverts on tv and some of those
ringtones just drive you up the wall. my phone accepts mp3's and
you can allow them to be used as ringtones (sony e s700i) all i need
to do is bluetooth them from my powerbook and presto. all the
songs that i use i own. on another note the same phone from
vodaphone has that feature turned off... i wonder why?

[Earl Benser]

Buying a ring tone....

... is an exercise for idiots. But I guess that still leaves a lot of
customers out there. And a matching number of idiot providers,
who think that every ring tone they don't sell is a rip off. Actually,
from what I hear, buying a ring tone can be a major rip off with
hidden and recurring charges.

Makes me wonder if I should get rid of my cell phone...... if I could
find it, ...... or wanted to.

[tagalex]

the real crime

The real crime is how horrible these songs sound coming out of a phone. They are so annoying and the songs with bending notes - yeeech!

[regulator1956]

Stupid Math

The typical stupid math.

Someone steals 20 ringtones and puts them on their phone.

"Oh NOOOOOO, we've lost $40 in revenue" says the cell phone company.

What a load of crap. The guy wouldn't have bought even 1 ringtone.

Should he have used the ringtones without paying? No. Did anyone lose revenue? No.

[Karios Kasra]

Re:

Exactly.

Suppose I download/buy a $2 ringtone, and I leave a duplication macro on overnight on my 1TB drive array just for the hell of it. If the ringtones are 100KB each, I've just cost them $20 million in revenue. Somebody put me in jail already!

[Karios Kasra]

Corporate scumbags

You can't lose what you don't physically own. Copyrighting ideas are fine, but copyrighting procedures are, by and far, retarded.

"This is the mobile and cyber equivalent of test-driving a car and then not having to give it back,"

And that is the human equivalent of an idiot talking out of his ass. Refer to my first paragraph as to why this is.

[Earl Benser]

The world wouldn't be complete...

... without the guardhouse lawyers and their inane versions of law.
Somebody ought to get these budding shysters into a closet and
stuff copyright law up their...whatever. Then maybe they'll quit the
stupidity and make an actually intelligent comment.

[chassoto--2008]

No lost revenue

Does a grocer cry "lost revenue" when someone eats the free stuff
the grocer hands out, but doesn't buy it? No, that's called the
"unfortunate" side of the marketing penetration equation.

Bunch of whiney crybabies. Try working for a living...