Telecom companies cash in on national anthems

Interestingly in many countries, national anthems and national songs are a rage for ringback tones and caller tunes, writes DN&A.

... Telecom and IT analyst IDC has projected that ringback tones will overtake ringtones (the tone that one hears when the mobile rings) by the end of this year. In fact, according to IDC, ringback tones are poised to become the single largest revenue source for mobile entertainment.

Read full article.

Beatles Sales On iTunes Top 450K

The initial Beatles sales figures are in: More than 450,000 albums and 2 million individual songs were sold on iTunes worldwide, according to Apple, since the Beatles catalog was made available Tuesday (Nov. 16). In U.S. the best-selling album was "Abbey Road" and best-selling song was "Here Comes the Sun."

[via Billboard. Image from nextweb.]

India says no to National Anthem as ringback tone

Livemint.com & The Wall Street Journal reports that India providers are not allowed to offer the country's national anthem as a ringback tone.

The department of telecommunications (DoT) has instructed service providers not to offer the national anthem as a ringback tone, because the service does not “comply with the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971”. These tones are not, mind, distorted versions of Jana Gana Mana. If DoT’s notice is read right, even playing a faithful rendition of the anthem insults national honour.

The situation is reminiscent of Naveen Jindal’s struggle, in the early years of the 21st century, to fly the Indian flag. On 26 January 2002, the government’s P.D. Shenoy committee had granted private citizens the right to fly the flag; a few years later, the Supreme Court recognized the right to fly the flag as a fundamental right. The recognition that the flag belongs to the Indian public, and not to the government apparatus, now needs to be extended to the national anthem as well.

You can listen to the Indian national anthem here.

Beatles storm iTunes charts on first day of sale

Within 24 hours of going on sale, Beatles songs already occupy 15% of iTunes UK's top 200.

[via The Guardian]

Ringback tone to raise money for Children in Need 2010

Muzicall, Europe’s leading provider of ringback tone (RBT) services has partnered with several UK mobile operators, media companies and mobile advertising networks to produce and promote a special charity ringback tone for BBC Children in Need 2010.

Mobile Users with participating operators will be able to support BBC Children in Need by purchasing the ringback tone which will be sold from £2.50. 100% of the revenue generated (Excluding VAT) will be donated to BBC Children in Need by participating mobile operators.

In their own words:

We’ve produced a special tone from Voiceover Man who your callers will instantly recognise from The X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent. Purchase this special charity Ringtagz and we’ll give 100% of your donation (ex VAT) to BBC Children in Need to make a positive change to the lives of disadvantaged children and young people right here in the UK. By playing this message to your callers, you’ll be showing your support for the charity as well as letting them know how they can donate money.

e-mail press release.

Other fund raising ringtones.

Indian Entertainment Firm Using Music to Sell Mobile Phones

Super Cassettes Industries, a large Indian entertainment company, plans to enter India's growing mobile phone market by bundling some of its audio and video content free with handsets, a company executive said. PC World reports.

The company, which will start selling mobile phones in January, plans to sell the phones with the T-Series brand under which it currently sells its entertainment content, Neeraj Kalyan, vice president of the T-Series, said on Wednesday.

Kalyan expects that the T-Series brand name, the product and the free content will help it reach sales of 700,000 mobile phones a month in three years. The content may come built into the phones or may be available free for download by users, Kalyan said.

Read full article.

Apple Welcomes the Beatles to iTunes With a New Ad Campaign

Spotted on D | All Things Digital, Apple's campaign welcoming The Beatles to iTunes.

Working It Out, iTunes to Sell Beatles Titles

Apple is expected on Tuesday to announce that it has finally struck a deal with the Beatles and the band’s record company, EMI, to sell the band’s music on iTunes, according to a confidential source.

So far Apple and EMI declined to comment, and representatives of the Beatles and Apple Corps, the band’s company (not to be confused with the technology company), could not be reached.

[via The New York Times]

Now You Can Bump iOS Devices to Share Music

Bump, the cell phone app that allows for a quick and easy way to connect two phones simply by bumping them together, now supports user-to-user music sharing.

In their own words: Select songs on your device and bump them to a friend. They can stream them for free from Youtube, listen to iTunes previews, or buy them on iTunes.

[via Mashable]

iTunes Ping comes to Twitter

Twitter users can now link up their accounts with Ping, the social music service launched by Apple. Cnet reports.

Once you've linked the accounts, whenever you post, like, review, or tell your friends why you purchased a song or album on Ping, this activity will also be tweeted to your Twitter followers--complete with playable song previews and links to purchase and download music from iTunes," a post on the Twitter blog explained.

Read more

Desert discs: how mobile phones are at the root of Saharan music

The Guardian on Christopher Kirkley's trip to Mali to make field recordings, but returned with a mixtape of music taken from Saharan Sim cards.

The cellphone is such a fixture of west Africa. Everyone has a phone even in villages lacking reception," explained Kirkley, who collected MP3 memory cards in the Tuareg city of Kidal in northern Mali. "They're not just phones, they're all purpose media devices. In the west we maintain a repository of data on hard drives, in Sahel, the cellphone does the same thing."

Read full article. Listen to Music from Saharan Cell Phones.

[via MobileActive.org]

Music streaming seen boosting mobile sales-study

Mobile operators should ditch their music download stores and opt for partnerships with music streaming services if they want to generate more revenue and make customers stick, a study found, reports Reuters.

A typical Western European operator -- with 20 million customers -- could achieve revenue benefits of 77.7 million euros ($109 million) per year from new users, a rise in mobile data and smartphone sales according to a market research study released on Monday.

Read full article.

Related:

Special ringtones for anti-bullying week

Pupils at Cardinal Wiseman and Potters Green schools have been creating their own ringtones as part of a project to mark anti-bullying week, from November 5th to November 19. The ringtones feature pupils scratching records and chanting messages about anti-bullying.

[via Coventry Telegraph]

Jammie Thomas hit with $1.5 million verdict

Jammie Thomas-Rasset, the Minnesota woman who has been fighting the recording industry over 24 songs she illegally downloaded and shared online four years ago, has lost another round in court. Cnet reports.

... The trial is the third for Thomas-Rasset, who was originally accused of sharing 1,700 songs--enough to fill about 150 CDs. After one jury found her liable for copyright infringement in 2007 and ordered her to pay $222,000, the judge in the case later ruled that he erred in instructing the jury and called for a retrial. In the second trial, which took place in 2009, a jury found Thomas-Rasset liable for $1.92 million.

But earlier this year, the judge found that amount to be "monstrous and shocking" and reduced the amount to $54,000. Following that, the RIAA informed Thomas-Rasset that it would accept $25,000--less than half of the court-reduced award--if she agreed to ask the judge to "vacate" his decision, which means removing his decision from the record. Thomas-Rasset rejected that offer almost immediately.

Read full article. Image from Wired

BMI reveals ringback tone decline

BMI claims that the US ringback tone market dropped 7.2% in the year ended 30 June, from $195 million to $181 million, reports music:) alley.

However, it clarifies that usage of RBTs isn’t falling – just the revenues from selling them. “We believe that this is a result of the emerging trend of bundled services, where ringbacks are made available as part of a package,” says SVP of corporate strategy Richard Conlon.

Read full article.