News Blog

Apple is in talks with the largest record companies as it attempts to boost the iPhone's offering of ringtones and other musical content, according to a report in The New York Times.

Citing several unnamed music industry executives, the Times said that negotiations are "very active" and a final deal has not been set.

A final deal may come after June 9, when Apple CEO Steve Jobs speaks at the company's developer conference, the paper reported. That is when some expect Apple to announce the coming of the next-generation iPhone.

In addition to beefing up ringtones, Apple is also looking for rights to deliver songs from iTunes to iPhones over the cell phone broadband network, according to the Times. The labels are asking for more money for this kind of delivery, the paper reported.

Here's what the music labels are looking at: Apple is not only the country's biggest music retailer but is also becoming a force in mobile phones. If the record companies ask too much money for ringtones and other features, they risk losing sales to the growing number of iPhone owners.

Ringtones are a sweet deal for the labels because they typically are shorter versions of songs but retail for the same price--sometimes higher--of a full song.

But Apple is up against a determined group. The big music companies have signed a score of deals with other music retailers and cell phone companies. It's often written that the music industry doesn't want to be beholden to any one distributor. The top labels want greater flexibility with setting prices on iTunes.

If a deal can't be reached, Nokia and other cell phone makers could gain an important advantage over the iPhone.

Sure, it's not new that people get interrupted at dinner by a cell phone call. In the past, it must have been a pager, or maybe in olden days, a courier pigeon. But with the increasing number of people getting iPhones (I have to admit that a scion of my friends are over it and are eagerly awaiting the next iPhone) what's happening is now I know what types of messages are interrupting that long-planned catch-up dinner with that over-scheduled friend sitting across the table from me. Whereas before you knew there was a message, now (thanks to the limited number to iPhone tones available) you can have a pretty good idea that Johnnie Q. Public is being texted, has a new e-mail, maybe missing an iCal appointment, or has new voicemail. Even if your iPhone is on silent you can hear the vibration, persistent buzzing (a call), short buzz (everything else).

Of course, this brings up a new set of disclosures, expectations, and etiquette that I'm sure Emily Post would reject out of hand: don't answer; switch off your phone, stupid. OK, maybe not the "stupid" part, but I'm sure she'd lean toward giving your dinner date your full attention. But we all can't be Emily Posts, nor should we. But what are the guidelines? Do you tell the person or persons you're eating with who texted/called/e-mailed you? I kind of want to know who interrupted my dinner. Who would dare?

When I get called, I try not to break eye contact with the person I'm dining with--let me emphasize try. I would expect the same behavior in kind, but I'm sure this would be fantasy in today's world. For example, I taught an ex how to check work e-mail on their iPhone and never saw their eyes again while dining. They are now an ex. Or, what's worse, someone across the table gets a text message that makes them smile more than you can. Ouch!

So, what's the balance? There have been complaints about life getting less personal and communicative, so why spoil a personal face-to-face interaction with acknowledging absent person/communication? That said, anytime there's a gentle e-mail buzz, a jarring ringtone, or a subtle vibrate notification, you and your dinner date know someone, somewhere is trying to make some form of personal contact too. Shouldn't that be acknowledged too? Incidentally, because the iPhone (like many other PDAs/phones these days) has a large screen that definitely lets you see that John Doe is calling or texting in a font just large enough for Johnnie Q. Public to see and read. Oh, the interesting situations this can get you in.

Anyway, the trend my friends and I have been working out to strike a balance between giving your attention to your dinner date and making sure the calls during dinner weren't more important (or from someone more important) is the pre-dessert text break. Purely optional, of course. It was unspoken at first, but now it's explicit. So, during dinner, phones away. After about an hour into dinner, after the plates are cleared but before the post-dinner coffee/dessert gorge fest, phones out: we now all have a short break to check on the very, very urgent messages we may have missed over the salad and seared halibut course, but clearly pressing enough to check before the lava cake comes out.

Oftentimes though, it's disappointing: e-fare e-mails, a news alert via e-mail, an American Idol text, junkmail about a new diet. How fitting.

Thumbplay announced on Thursday a deal it just wrapped up with iLike, a music recommendation service big on Facebook, to exclusively stock iLike's virtual shelves with ringtones.

Thumbplay's ringtones are disguised on iLike.com by the generic command to "get ringtones," and placed alongside iTunes links. They'll also be sprinkled throughout the iLike Challenge game on iLike's site and will be available for purchase through the iLike Facebook app.

This is a definite win for Thumbplay. The mobile content distributor's limp Facebook app, a Photo Portal that pushes pictures uploaded from a Thumbplay locker to a mobile phone, has so far only grossed 10 active daily users. By teaming up with iLike, Facebook's big cheese music discovery app, with nearly 600,000 active users, Thumbplay has jumped on a better angle for getting their products to Facebook users, and dropping coins in their pocket as well.

Related story: Thumbplay: Unlimited storage now, Facebook apps coming soon

Your boyfriend forget your 30th birthday?

Try sending some raging elephants his way.

Vringo, a video ringtone sharing company, announced Tuesday it's adding video clips from the Discovery Channel to its bevy of video ringtones offerings.

The 2- to 10-second Discovery Channel video clips run the gamut, of yes, raging elephants to bees to serene sunsets.

While the video clips are free, users have to be subscribers to Vringo on both the sending and receiving end to make use of the service. Users also need a compatible phone, such as one running on Symbian J2ME, or the Windows Mobile platform, on a Nokia or Sony Ericsson device.

Myxer introduced a new feature at DemoFall: a widget to instantly upload photos, videos or ringtones to mobile phones.

(Credit: Myxer)

It's aimed at people who want to make money on things like wallpaper and ringtones but don't have the technical know-how or the resources to distribute it themselves. Mobilized by Myxer is a delivery platform that can push any content to any phone. They've promised to keep up on the constantly fluctuating mobile standards and phones that enter the market so you don't have to. The only requirements are that users own the content they want to distribute, and know how to drag and drop the content into the publishing wizard.

And, hey, it's got an endorsement from Tay Zonday, the Internet phenom behind "Chocolate Rain" who sells the ringtone version of his song for $1.99 through the service. What else could you ask for?

A while back I wrote about the iPhone's limited ringtone selection and the phone's inability to relegate an unwanted call to a silent ringtone. In other words, when that pesky boss or ex calls you don't want to know they ever called. The silent ringtone becomes an exercise in call avoidance, a technique for diverting them to voicemail without them ever knowing what you're up to. Now that iPhone problem is, well, no longer a problem.

Hand in hand with the ability to have no ringtone for a specific caller would be the desire to assign specific ringtones to specific friends. So, when Steve Jobs announced that ringtones with iTunes for the iPhone were coming, I was again stoked. While the last update of iTunes enabled you to see a little bell icon for ringtones in the iTunes store and desktop interface, it wasn't until this morning that I could purchase ringtones on iTunes and try them out. (This is why I ended up being late to work this morning--doh!)

The iPhone's ringtone feature is pretty straightforward: if a song can be used as a ringtone, it'll have a little bell icon lit up next to the track. I looked at my purchased music and sorted by the bell. Not that many songs appeared, but a good number did. In the iTunes store the little bell icon will be lit up too if the track can be used as a ringtone. Sadly, some of my favorites, like "Glamorous" by Fergie or "Because of You" by Ne Yo, are not available. (I suppose I can use a third-party fix that other bloggers have talked about to record and convert a song into a ringtone to be fed into iTunes, but hell, I'm too lazy sometimes.) Strangely, however, songs like "The Chairman's Waltz," from Memoirs of a Geisha, were available. How did these license deals get worked out?

Anyway, once you highlight a song you want to use as a ringtone, a new window appears--the complete song appears in that seismic-graph way. You then drag the 15-second highlight blue box to the portion of the song you want to use as your ringtone. I mistakenly thought that you could manipulate this selection after you buy it. Nope. So choose wisely or you have to drop another $.99 to get another 15 seconds of the song.

So as a start, I picked four ringtones for songs that I already had: "Sexyback" by Justin Timberlake (as picked for my friend Gideon, who truly is bringing sexy back); "Vogue" by Madonna (for my fabulous friend Max); "Seven Days in Sunny June" by Jamiroquai (for sunny, happy calls); and "Love on the Run" by the dance group Chicane (to be assigned).

After you select the portion of the song you want, you are prompted to make your final selection, and then all you have to do is double-click to purchase. The ringtone downloads and will now appear in the iTunes sync window (right under podcasts for me). So once your iPhone is plugged into iTunes, a new tab--"ringtones"--appears as well. Like any other podcast, TV show, or music list, you can pick and choose which ones get synced. Once the ringtones reside on the iPhone you can then assign them to a particular contact by editing the person's details. (A note: I had to reauthorize my computer after downloading the ringtones--not sure why, but nevertheless it only worked after this. This, of course, drove me crazy and made me later for work by yet another 10 minutes.)

Now, these ringtones will definitely test the iPhone's speakers. Before, I had observed that some standard ringtones were barely audible if, for example, you have your iPhone in a pocket or bag. I selected the beginning of "Vogue" (the finger-snapping part) for Max's ringtone. Works like a charm. Loud enough, but not too intrusive, and subtle--just like my friend Max. However, the portion of "Sexyback" I picked was jarring, shocking and would scare the hell out of me if it rang, especially given the iPhone's less-than-stellar speakers. It's almost akin to the standard iPhone "ALARM" ringtone. This is not at all like the person who is bringing sexy back. Oops. I still have a lot to play with. but the iPhone/iTunes ringtone feature does meet my expectations.

Overall, it's pretty neat to have customizable ringtones. But this is not a new idea. Other carriers and other phones have had similar features too. (I'm not sure if those other ringtone services are as customizable as the iTunes platform.) The difference here is that the interface is slick and easily integrated with the iPhone. Other phones and services I've had in the past did not make the process of downloading ringtones simple or fast. The iPhone/iTunes ringtone feature is both of those things. Sure, I wish there were more songs available, but at at least now there are some tracks that have 15 seconds of silence that can be used as a ringtone...excellent.

Anytime Rick Carnes is out and hears a song played as someone's ringtone, well, it's like music to his ears.

Carnes, a songwriter for nearly three decades, laughs when he considers that his work is more valuable as a ringtone--just a few seconds of his music--than a full version of one of his songs downloaded from the Web.

Rick Carnes, in an undated photo

"Where's the logic in that?" asks Carnes, president of the Songwriters Guild of America.

Until last October, music publishers were able to pocket 10 percent of the retail price for a song, according to Steve Gordon, a copyright attorney. This meant that for a $2.99 ringtone, the publisher could make 30 cents and typically split half with the songwriter.

But the labels are now threatening to choke off that extra income. Record companies claim songwriters and music publishers charge too much and want prices restricted to a rate of 9.1 cents per song.

The labels argue that they are entitled to the extra money because music publishers pay nothing of the large upfront costs associated with producing master recordings, according to Gordon.

Carnes, 57, who has written songs for Alabama, Reba McEntire and Dean Martin, said that all the songwriters want is to be allowed to negotiate the price of their music.

Last October, the labels were able to convince the Register of Copyright to restrict publishers to the same 9.1 cents they make on a "compulsory license."

A compulsory license mandates that once a song is recorded and distributed to the public, anyone else can record that song if they agree to pay the publisher 9.1 cents (4.5 cents goes to the songwriter) for every recording they sell. This means, according to Carnes, that songwriters are prevented from seeking the best price for their work like everybody else in a free-market society.

"This shows you how we really don't have a free market," Carnes said. "Why would the government impose an artificial rate? Well, the record labels are just running roughshod over us."

Music publishers are appealing the decision of the Copyright Office and are gearing up for a big legal battle in coming months. If this sounds like a lot of people getting worked up over pennies, consider the story that Merv Griffin used to tell.

The crooner, talk-show host, game-show creator and billionaire businessman who died last week at the age of 82, once found a check for a large sum on his desk and couldn't figure out how he had earned it. According to a story in Rolling Stone magazine, Merv couldn't figure out why someone was paying him huge royalties for the song he penned for his show "Jeopardy."

The ditty had become a top-selling ringtone.

(Credit: Apple.com)

MacRumors has confirmed that the forthcoming version of iTunes will contain a built-in ringtone creation utility for songs purchased via the iTunes Music Store. Users will be able to right-click on purchased songs and select "Make into Ringtone," which will give them a small audio workspace to select the 30 seconds they want to use as a new ringtone. According to MacRumors, the use of this feature will cost $.99 per track--a fee which goes toward licensing the music for your mobile phone. That means the total fee for a ringtone is $1.98.

There's no confirmation of whether users will be able to use this feature on music ripped from CDs or other DRM-free tracks.

All things considered, this isn't a bad price for a ringtone. However, for many mobile phone users, iTunes has long been a fairly simple way to convert music tracks into mobile ringtones using its importing tool. It's been confirmed that the iPhone won't play your full music tracks as ringtones.

iTunes 7.3 will be required for both activation and sync of the iPhone. Apple is expected to release the updated software Friday morning.