Cell phone ringtones sales globally over the last year are up by 40% to more than $3.5 billion (via Wired). But I'm wondering, do we even need a song translated into a ringtone, if we can just play one or another MP3's on our phones, when a call or text message comes in? I mean, my phone plays music, why not just set up the music to play, or even a bit of the music, that I've already paid for, to ring me? Why does my ring tone have to be an electronic tone-quality to signify a ring? Why not just make my own, out of what I've already bought?

On a somewhat related note, Ernie Miller has a hilarious take on the double copyright issue brewing where two formats of the same music are contained on a single CD:

Ah, the wonders and intricacies of copyright law. Many of the new "copy-protected" CDs on the market are so-called "double session" CDs that have two copies of a recording on the CD. One copy is in the traditional CD format so that it will play back on traditional CD players, the other copy is generally in a proprietary format for DRM restricted copying onto PCs and other devices.

So the music publishers want two copyright fees, even though the users are getting one song. Seems to me that the DRM and related hardware divides up where the song can be played, and so the CD maker is adapting to the fair use desires of customers who see that they are buying a song, and want it to play wherever they have a CD player. Just because there are multiple digital formats and hardwares that can play a song, doesn't I think, warrant the compensating of the copyright holder multiple times for the same song on the same CD. How very greedy of them.