June 23, 2003
Is downloading ringtones legal?
In India, many portals and cellular operators are are operating "illegally" by offering ringtones for download without paying copyright fees, according to industry sources and reported in Mid Day.
Depending on whether it's a sound recording of an original track, or the tone is re-recorded and is not an exact extract of the original sound track, providers should ask for a licence from the Indian Music Industry (a consortium of over 50 music companies representing over 75 per cent of the industry) or take a licence from the Indian Performance Right Society.
"While there is no estimate of the turnover of the ringtone sector in the country as yet, a survey by a UK-based Internet Monitoring company says that the "massive intellectual property abuse has the potential of costing the world music industry as much as USD one million dollar per day", according to Mid Day.
The Permanent Link to this page is: http://www.textually.org/ringtonia/archives/2003/06/000930.htm