March 21, 2003
Toons and Ringtones face copyright issues
In an interesting article in Wired, Elisa batista reports from the CTIA in New Orleans on how cell-phone makers are pushing the ability to share pictures, video and audio content wirelessly for a fee, but haven't yet resolved how to keep cell-phone users from passing that paid content on to all their friends.
While industry representatives say piracy and illegal file sharing aren't rampant -- yet -- the issue has received attention, even from legislators.
Digital-rights management will definitely be an issue, especially with regard to the music industry.
As early as 2001, British software company, Envisional (specializing in copyright protection), issued a warning to the music industry, claiming it was facing its "next Napster" from internet sites that allowed consumers to download novelty ring tones and that "illegal downloads of mobile phone ringtones were costing the music industry around £750,000 a day".
That very same year, on behalf of copyright owners who claimed they didn't want their music turned into jingles, EMI was the first record company and music publisher to order ringtone providers to stop converting the songs of it's artists.
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