2.28.2005
Ug. Ringtones. More annoying than Pauly Shore as your roommate.
As tremendously annoying those damn polyphonic ringtones are, the cell phone industry has certainly managed to get more annoying. Now they are on to "master tones," which are essentially just .wav (aka "actual audio") files that play for your ringer. Now, instead of hearing the horrible "music" from 50-Cent, you can hear his actual obnoxious grunting.
And of course, the music industry is thrilled. Before, with polyphonic ringtones, the companies peddling the tunes had to pay the music publishers and songwriters. Now, with the master tones, the peddlers must pay the evil record companies for use of the actual audio recording. Ca-ching goes the cash register - "ringtones generated four billion dollars in sales around the world in 2004." Link.
But, there is a way around this, and it isn't changing your phone back to a plain old "ring, ring." (Actually, I've been using that for some time, as I still cannot stand custom ringtones) A company called Xingtone has popped up with software to convert your MP3s and CDs into ringtones free of charge (after you pay for their software, of course). The best part - this is completely legal per fair use and copyright law. Wow, doing something that pisses off the music companies AND is completely legal. Fantastic.
Now, we just need some geeks to create the software for free, open-source or creative commons style.
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