ASCAP Sez: Pay Royalty Each Time Phone Rings!

Published on July 2nd, 2009

Posted by John C Dvorak in General

Apple iPhone has flaw in SMS system. Fix is coming.
MSFT Bing does crappy job with news. I am sure it is because of a lack of bots.
Sheep are shrinking due to climate change says scientist.
Mozilla Firefox already has a bug.
MSFT pulls a sickening ad off the net. I have it posted on Dvorak Uncensored.
Motorola going into the femtocell business.
The Register says Seagate needs to catch up with SSD business.
New Symbian coming out.
CIO magazine reports on Ritzy homes.
ASCAP contends royalties are due for each ring rung. Huh?

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8 users responded in " ASCAP Sez: Pay Royalty Each Time Phone Rings! "

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# 1 pedro said, on July 2nd, 2009 at 4:06 pm

Oy!Phone has an SMS kill bug? How come? isn’t mac the safest thing since global warming?

# 2 Nimby said, on July 2nd, 2009 at 6:16 pm

And ASCAP also claimed playing your radio in a place of business was a public performance. Pay up! They simply drive us into “piracy”

# 3 Glenn E. said, on July 2nd, 2009 at 7:13 pm

Yeah! It’s all legal use, until they start feeling the financial pinch. Then the rules suddenly change. And music played in elevators is labeled a public performance.

The thing these a-hole lawyers (and judges?) don’t seem to consider is, that people’s cellphones aren’t making money because of their ringtones. They aren’t radio stations with advertisers, or big box stores. And it’s only the ringtone vendors, that do.

It’s no different than a music store that sells a CD single. They don’t have to keep paying a fee, after the initial sales. And the customer doesn’t have to keep paying, every time they play the song. So why are ringtones any special over CDs, that a usage fee is required? It’s just because the technology may be rigged to charge for their use, each time, that they’re claiming it should be.

Personally, I wouldn’t own a cellphone that I couldn’t install my own homebrewed ringtone on. I’d sooner pay for a hack to allow that, than pay for the ringtones themselves. They’ll never have the few I’d want, anyway.

I think the music industry clearly wants to be overthrown and dissolved, by the citizens of the world, in the very near future. They better not come crawling to the taxpayers for a bailout, anytime soon. But then I’m guessing they won’t have to, if they keep coming up with these creative reason why they should get paid more for each song. What’s next? If you even think about a song, you’ll own them a royalty? Trust me, if they could read minds, they’d do it.

# 4 Ah_Yea said, on July 2nd, 2009 at 10:03 pm

ASCAP = ASSHAT

# 5 deowll said, on July 3rd, 2009 at 6:20 am

MS is trying to save money at the wrong place again. They have a proven track record for blowing a few billion on some project then deciding that it’s to hard and dropping the thing or doing a sorry job on it like the red ring of death. The design is still flawed to the point that the machines will fail if used enough. What’s new about this?

Maybe ASCAP IS owed money but if so they should take it up with the record companies.

I doubt it though. The ring tones are stored on the phone which is like playing an mp3 rather than a broadcast. In fact I think they are MP3s.

# 6 Angel H. Wong said, on July 3rd, 2009 at 9:42 am

Smaller sheep = tighter holes.

# 7 Rider said, on July 3rd, 2009 at 10:14 am

Yay ASCAP take more royalties that will they claim is to cover overhead and not give any of the money to the artists.

# 8 Nimby said, on July 3rd, 2009 at 7:37 pm

# 3 Glenn E. said, “What’s next? If you even think about a song, you’ll own them a royalty? Trust me, if they could read minds, they’d do it.”

OMG! I’ve had “Mellow Yellow” stuck on a continuous loop in my head for a week. I may soon be bankrupt!

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