1. I downloaded and bought Xingtones about three weeks ago. It is quite easy to use yet because of phone technologies you are limited to 30 sec song samples as the program will not let you send anything over 30 secs. The memory in your phone will also dictate what you can have and what you cant. The phone we used, the Motorola v600 has 5mb so it could store about twenty 30 second song clips.

As phone technology gets better this Ringtone wave will hit the US with a vengeance.

Posted at 5:58AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Casey Mack

2. Techdirt adds more to the subject.

Here's the link: http://techdirt.com/news/wireless/article/3991

"Sometimes certain things make you wonder how people made it to the position of power they're now in. We've been saying for months now that the biggest risk to the whole ringtone phenomena was that as mobile phones became more open it was only a matter of time until people created a "Napster for mobile phones" that got around the need to go through a service provider to get their ringtones. We're not patting ourselves on the back for this prediction because it doesn't take a genius to figure it out. It doesn't take much at all, but apparently there are some music industry execs who didn't figure it out at all, and are now afraid that things like Xingtone (which let people create their own ringtones from their own music collection, or whatever soundfile they have) will end up taking business away from the ringtone market. How this could take them by surprise at all is the only surprise here. It would seem that the industry would have a hard time proving that someone taking 10 seconds of a song they legally purchased and turning it into a personal ringtone for their own use isn't exercising their fair use rights"

Posted at 5:58AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Alberto Escarlate

3. Casey, thanks for your comment. I believe (but am not certain) that the Xingtones 30-second limit is there to keep the audio files at fair-use length. Actually, there is no legally defined length that qualifies a clip as fair use. Each case, if challenged, must be argued separately on the basis of length, intended use, and source. But over the years, 30 seconds for audio use has become an informal standard of qualification for fair use; any clip of 30 seconds or less is not likely to be challenged. Keeping the clips under 30 seconds enables Xingtones to maintain the fair-use legitimacy of their product. It would be *very* difficult (IMO) for labels to take action against Xingtones with the same arguments used against P2P companies.

Posted at 5:58AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Brad Hill

4. There is no fair use standard of 30 seconds or less. This is just more example of mis-information.

Posted at 5:58AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Ted Cohen

5. Hi Ted, and thanks for your comment. I think I made it explicitly clear that 30 seconds is an "informal standard," not an official one, and that fair use challenges are decided on a case-by-case basis. Stanford University's excellent Copyright and Fair Use site (http://fairuse.stanford.edu) points out: "The fair use doctrine has been described as a murky concept in which it is often difficult to separate the lawful from the unlawful." Many other sources point to 30-second clips as a guidepost toward appropriate fair-use excerpting. See, for example, the NARM white paper on this issue here--

http://www.narm.com/Content/NavigationMenu/Public_Affairs/Position_Papers/sampling/sampling.htm

In this paper, NARM acknowledges that BMI denies any official 30-second standard of fair use.

Given that fiar use is an essentially undefined concept, informal standards are all that most people and companies have to go by. I believe (but, as I said above, am not certain) that Xingtones used the commonplace 30-second guideline in determing maximum clip length. I believe my previous comment was fair. Your black-and-white assessment of my comment is inappropriate, since I didn't make a black-and-white assessment of fair use.

Good to hear from you, nonetheless.

Posted at 5:58AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Brad Hill

6. Fairuse is not an undefined concept by copyright laws. Here is a link that may help you.

http://www.benedict.com/Info/law/fairUse/fairUse.aspx

It would be hard for Xingtones to be acused of copyright infringement since they are not producing the actual ringtones. They are just providing a tool for the end-user to make ringtones from music they have already purchased. This whole subject could get messy. But think about it this way. If there is a 30 Second Fairuse policy in effect, anyone with a web server could rip 30 seconds of any song and produce millions of ringtones and they would not be in violation of any laws.

Posted at 5:58AM on Dec 19th 2005 by John Phillips

7. "Fairuse is not an undefined concept by copyright laws. Here is a link that may help you."

Thanks for the link, but I'm not sure I need the help. I never said fair use was undefined. I said it was decided on a case-by-case basis according to defined criteria--exactly what your link explains.

"If there is a 30 Second Fairuse policy in effect, anyone with a web server could rip 30 seconds of any song and produce millions of ringtones and they would not be in violation of any laws."

Nooo... that would certainly fail to meet a fair use challenge. Nobody in this discussion said that the 30-second (informal) limit was the *only* criterion.

Posted at 5:58AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Brad Hill

8. This discussion is nice to see. Also keep in mind, most phones go to voicemail after 30 seconds so we consider this to be a reasonable/functional limit. If anyone has any questions about Xingtone software, feel free to get in touch.
Eric (eric@xingtone.com)

Posted at 5:58AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Eric

9. What's also interesting here is how operators have begun changing their stance on ringtone delivery outside their walled garden if you adopt MMS delivery since that is higher-rev generating. Check out www.tonethis.com, that's exactly what I'm doing for Verizon.

Posted at 5:58AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Raj