ASCAP Digs For More Money On Ringtones

When I first heard about this, I almost thought it was a joke.  ASCAP, a music performing rights organization now wants to tap more money out of your pocket for ringtones.  Songwriters and artists already receive a royalty when you purchase a musical ringtone, now that want ANOTHER tax on top of that. ASCAP claims that even if you legally purchased a ringtone for your cell phone you could still be infringing copyright’s because you didn’t pay what’s known as a ‘performance tax’.

ASCAP is claiming that every time your ringtone goes off, that song being played in public is considered a ‘public performance’ and therefore they should get a kickback for it.  Yes, you heard that right.  I guess I better keep my windows rolled up when I’m blaring AC/DC in my car and I better not play music off my laptop in the lounge at school because i’d be putting on a ‘public performance’.

ASCAP’s arguments are down right outlandish and I highly doubt they’ll win this fight in court with wireless giant AT&T.  ASCAP is also claiming that not only is the mobile customer with the ringtone liable, but so is the wireless provider who’s network makes the mobile phone ring.

Ringtones funnel hundreds of millions of fresh profit into the music industry each year, hip-hop artists’ like Soulja Boy focus their entire songwriting and career around selling ringtones because they have a high return.  Album sales don’t make the same amount of cash for the artist as a ringtone. For the last five years ringtones have been the crutch to the industry as they work on new business models to survive.  ASCAP has even gone as far as saying that “AT&T has gone much further in copyright infringement than Napster ever did.”  No, you are not in the twilight zone, this really is happening.

Leave it to the recording industry to poke a hole in their temporary life raft and tick everyone off in the process calling major corporations and millions of wireless customers criminals.  Instead of trying to suck money off their customers with additional taxes and suing their own consumers, maybe they should spend their time figuring out new business models for their industry to stay alive in the digital age.

Do you think a ringtone is a ‘public performance’ and should artists receive a royalty for it?  Let me know what you think by commenting below!