Free ringtones are officially concerts according to the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, a music industry licensing group. A post we made some time ago located here explained how the ASCAP was claiming that when a mobile phone plays a ringtone, that it is the same as a public performance by the artist, and they should be able to collect royalties from this “performance”. Legally ASCAP has not been able to collect these royalties, but a few days ago Verizon paid up to 5 million dollars to ASCAP for every ringtone sold since 2004. Nobody thought anything would come of ASCAP’s claims, but this shows you how sideways the music industry is getting. Verizon must have believed the story would hold up in court or they would have never paid a dime.
Archive for September, 2009
Free Ringtones are Concerts
September 28th, 2009Run This Town Ringtone
September 5th, 2009Free ringtones billboard: Jay-Z, Rihanna & Kanye West’s new track “Run This Town” is making quite an impression on the free ringtones billboards. Ranking this week at number eight, up from number thirty one just two weeks ago. We predict this one to overtake the largely popular track from Drake “Best I Ever Had” in the coming weeks. Grab them both while they’re hot.
