HAHA OMIGOD NO! LOL! Please, stoppit, someone give the RIAA a straight jacket!
The same forces that took on file-swapping companies Napster and MP3.com are quietly setting their sights on what some regard as the next digital copyright battle: selling ring tones for cell phones.
Selling ring tones is big business in Europe and Asia, where hundreds of companies offer snippets of popular music to replace the prepackaged tones used to alert someone to a call. More than $300 million in ring tones were sold in Japan last year. Nokia estimates it will make billions selling ring tones by the end of 2005.
There has been just one lawsuit so far against a ring-tone seller. Record label EMI sued YourMobile, a ring-tone seller and wireless advertising firm based in Santa Monica, Calif. The case has since been settled, and Chief Operating Officer Bryan Biniak said YourMobile has received licenses from EMI, plus three other major publishing representatives. A fifth is expected soon.
"This is a potentially enormous marketplace," Biniak said. "We don"t want the industry to end up like the Napster space."