Why Apple Charges $0.99 To Crop A Ringtone

Apple has been getting a lot of grief from fans who think the extra $0.99 for ringtones is absurd, but what people don't know is that Apple agrees with you. According to Daniel Dilger of Roughly Drafted, Apple was forced to tack on the charge by the RIAA.

You might remember that during the Macworld 07 Keynote, Steve's examples of iTunes working with the iPhone all included a "Ringtone" tab, which nobody understood. According to the report, the reason we weren't presented with it earlier was because the RIAA would have none of it.

"At stake are the complex copyright laws involving derivative works, performing rights, and reproduction rights. Apple’s iTunes breaks open a whole can of worms because it is changing the market for music and video," Mr. Dilger wrote.

Keep in mind, Verizon Wireless charges $2.50 and up for individual ringtones that have been cropped by someone else, and are probably of lower sound quality (if that matters for a ringtone). From that perspective, iTunes ringtones are a bargain. Still, only from that perspective.

"Apple negotiated a far lower price than any other ringtone distributor, but the labels are [still] worried that consumers might figure out how to create their own ringtones, just as they were able to figure out how to put music from CDs onto computers and MP3 players, a practice that got out of hand and resulted in more music being handed around for free than legally paid for," Mr. Dilger noted.

Interestingly enough, the RIAA doesn't pay the performer a penny of the fee for creating a ringtone. Similarly, with the sales of iTunes, most of the profits end up back with the record companies. It's no secret that the recording industry does what they can to keep as much of the profits for themselves, often resulting in expensive music and a large flow of illegal music sharing. Also noted is that NBC recently asked Apple to force their media playing devices to only play DRM protected files in an attempt to crack down on illegal media.

So, in short, don't blame Apple for the extra $0.99 charge because they have to in order to stay in good terms with record labels, blame the record labels.

[via Roughly Drafted]