Ring Ring, Ka-Ching!

Some weeks back, the Canadian Copyright Board ruled [pdf] that the ringtones you download to your phone are subject to copyright. The Board decision opened the issue this way:

[1] Cellular telephones are omnipresent; their ringtones are ubiquitous. Ringtones announce to anyone within hearing distance the phone owner’s penchant for the theme from Hockey Night in Canada, Beethoven’s Für Elise, Axel F from the film Beverly Hills Cop or any other music (or sound) of the owner’s choosing.

[2] Ringtones are the bane of funeral parlours, theatres, courthouses and hearing rooms. They are also extremely popular. In 2003, they generated worldwide sales of USD 3.5 billion or about 10 per cent of the global music market. That revenue was expected to rise to USD 5.2 billion in 2008.

[3] Most ringtones use music. Those who own the right to communicate music [SOCAN] have asked the Board to set a tariff for that use.

The wireless carriers, who would have to pay the tariff argued that “transmitting a ringtone does not involve a communication to the public by telecommunication within the meaning of the Copyright Act.”S.3. (1) For the purposes of this Act, “copyright”, in relation to a work, means the sole right to produce or reproduce the work or any substantial part thereof in any material form whatever, to perform the work or any substantial part thereof in public or, if the work is unpublished, to publish the work or any substantial part thereof, and includes the sole right…
(f) in the case of any literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work, to communicate the work to the public by telecommunication… The Board disagreed.

This is a lenthy decision — some 45 pages — and it contains some interesting information about ringtones, their production, the varieties, their popularity and value in today’s economy (possibly $30 million this year).