Lawsuit Over Ringtone Royalties

From moconews.net:
Lawsuit Over Ringtone Royalties

--------------
The other half of the music battle...an ongoing lawsuit between some musicians and Sony over the amount of royalties they receive has been expanded to include ringtones.
"The suit claims that the average song sold over the Internet for 99 cents is netting the bands about 4 1/2 cents in royalties, rather than the 30 cents they claim they should get in a licensing deal...Ringtones -- small sections of popular songs that play when a person's phone rings -- have been netting the performers about 8.3 cents apiece, out of the $1 to $1.50 that Sony Music gets from each sale. The musicians say they should get 50 to 75 cents". The lawsuit seeks class action status, and claims ringtones will be a US$20 billion industry this year.
--------------

8.3 cents - what a joke! If you have a Xingtone mStore and sell your ringtones directly to your fans, you earn a minimum of 50% of your ringtone sales. And you set your own ringtone prices! Xingtone is all about empowering the artist. That's why artists, record labels, and other content owners use Xingtone's mStore platform to sell their ringtones. It's so easy! Now is a great time to start selling!

El Vacilón de la Mañana Ringtones

The sounds of El Vacilón de la Mañana are the hottest tones right now! Unique audio clips, prominent homepage promotion, and they are using traditional media (radio, in this case) to spread the word. Yes, El Vacilón has a top-rated radio show on La Mega (97.9) in NYC, but anyone can learn from this. Use all available avenues to promote your music and your ringtones. Once someone downloads your tone on their phone, he/she becomes a free broadcaster of your content. Where else does this happen these days? I don't see a lot of people carrying boom-boxes on their shoulders any more, do you? How often do you let someone shove your iPod headphones into their crusty ears to hear what you're listening to? I know, that's disgusting! Hearing a ringtone on your phone is much more effective.

It's all about mobile. Use it to your advantage. Get a Xingtone mStore.

mStore Success Stories

These mStores are making it happen on all fronts - high-quality niche content, aggressive marketing to their growing fan bases, and smart online/real-world promotion.

Please check out these stores, listen to their tones, see how they promote tones on their web sites. Learn from them. Apply their tactics to your own mStore effort and you will start seeing results. Rinse and repeat. If you don't have an mStore yet, get one now!

 They Might Be Giants
"Last week, Boing Boing ran a blog entry about TMBG's tones and it just caught on like wildfire! Hundreds of blogs picked up the story and the ringtone sales went through the roof!...

Travis Matte & the Zydeco Kingpins
"I basically promote our ringtones through our website, Myspace, and word of mouth when playing clubs, festivals. We are also the only band locally that features ringtones for our fans..."

Horror High
"These tones are really well-produced. Notice how they start off so strong! So, if someone answers the phone quickly, you still get a nice taste of the music. That's the way to do it...!

Really Rocket Science
"It's great to see these rocket scientists find their ringtone niche with authentic rocket countdown ringtones. Their simple blog entry has generated a ton of downloads and they've just "launched!..."

World Cup Ringtones
"This is a great way to build momentum around niche mobile content. Xingtone always gets excited when a new client gets an mStore online. It's so easy!..."


NOQONTROL
"The ringtone is not only a messenger but a personal statement. The beauty of it is in its simplicity and its pragmatic poetry..."


Sonny Rollins
"Sonny decided that he wanted to offer his audience something unique, an innovative way to hear his new music..."

Are you excited yet? Ringtone revenues are for real! Build your mStore and start selling!

Featured mStore: World Cup Ringtones

Classical music label, Naxos, has made a big splash in the ringtone market with an awesome collection of World Cup ringtones to get people fired up about the Cup. The company is offering the national anthems of all countries participating in the Cup along with tracks from the Gloria Stadium: 2006 Football Classics album (including Wagner's "Ride Of The Valkyries").

Here are the smart production and promotional tactics that Naxos has executed:

Creative Ringtone Store Interface
Press Release
Myspace Profile
Prominent Homepage Promotion

Naxos: "Soccer fans are super-supportive of their teams and what better way to show off that support than by having their own country's anthem as their new ringtone," said Jim Sturgeon, CEO of Naxos of America. "With our World Cup ringtones, there will be no mistaking their team allegiance when their mobile phone rings."

Xingtone: "Naxos is a very progressive company," said Jonathan Schreiber, president and chief executive officer of Xingtone, Inc. "They're delivering mobile content for the World Cup that is timely and targeted to a passionate user base, which is a good recipe for success."

See how it all fits together? This is a great way to build momentum around niche mobile content. Xingtone always gets excited when a new client gets an mStore online. It's so easy!

Do you have a niche? Do you have an mStore? Build one now (it only takes 15 minutes to launch one, I promise).

How To Promote Your mStore: The Basics

Here are some smart, simple ways to promote your mStore and boost ringtone revenues.

Online Promotion

1. Link To Your mStore
Now that you have an mStore, you have to let your fans know it's there! Place prominent links in these key locations to drive traffic to your mStore:

Homepage - see Assembly of Dust
Site Navigation - see SCI Fidelity
Music / Media / Downloads section - see Michael Franti & Spearhead
Merchandise area - see Delicious Vinyl
Myspace - see Sean Paul of The Youngbloodz
Fan newsletters - see The Juliana Theory

2. Interact With Your Fans Online

• If you have a message board or chat area on your web site or fan site, promote your ringtones there.


• Interacting with your fan base brings great returns and shows that you care.


• Ringtones are cool, fun, and inexpensive ways to get your fans to promote your music, so reach out to them as much as possible.

3. Use Your Ringtones To Find New Fans

• There are an infinite number of music portals and social networking sites where people go to check out new music.


• Places like MySpace, Yahoo Groups, & Friendster allow you to connect with music lovers all over the globe.


• Promote your mStore in these places and you can generate excellent buzz and sales.

Real World Promotion

1. Show Off Your Ringtones - Get A Demo Phone!!!

• Bottom line: hearing your music on a phone is a very cool thing!


• Get at least one real music phone on which you can demo your ringtones when you're out and about.


• If you don't have one, eBay is a good place to find used phones if you want to save a little money.


• Word-of-mouth promotion is a tremendous way to generate sales.

2. Promote Your Ringtones At Concerts / Social Events

• When you're on stage, everyone is paying attention - tell them about your ringtones!


• Play one on stage!


• Make a flyer for your merchandise table.

3. Use Your Street Team

• If you have a street team, use them to promote your tones.


• Get them to do all of the things mentioned above.


• If they have a real music phone, have them download your tones and spread the word.

mStore Help Guide

If you need help building your store, there are help links next to each step of the mStore-building process.

This document outlines the process from start-to-finish.

View: mstore_help_guide.pdf

Copy/Paste HTML
With this feature, you can copy the ringtone code and place it on any web site. View step-by-step details.

mStore Login

There are two ways to login to your mStore if you would like to make changes. It’s good to bookmark at least one of these:

[1] Go to http://mstore.xingtone.com/creator/login.php, enter your mStore name, and log in with your username and password.

[2] The direct address to manage your mStore is http://yourstorename.mstore.xingtone.com/management/index.php

mStore Client Support

If you have feedback about the mStore platform, please go to http://www.xingtone.com/support/mstore.htm

mStore Customer Support

If your customers have trouble receiving or downloading ringtones, please direct them to:

http://www.xingtone.com/support/contactSupportstore.htm

mStore Promotional Tools: PromoTonePlayer

mStore Promo Tone Player | Copy/Paste HTML | Banners






Promoting your ringtone offer online is critical to your success and is a great way to turn people on to your music! Here are a few mStore promotional tools that let you put your sounds all over the web and get people excited about your tones:

mStore Promo Tone Player [ Create a promo tone player ]
This is a 125x250-pixel promo ringtone teaser that's great for any web site or myspace page. Fans can sample 3-5 ringtones and click through to your store to find more and buy/download them. See examples above.

If you have an mStore and want one of these, create one now . Here's how it works:

1. Follow instructions on this page.

2. Copy code.

3. Go to your myspace profile, edit profile, and paste this code in your music section or any other place on your profile.

4. Your fans can also create tone players from your tones and they can copy/paste on their web sites and myspace pages. Just send them here.

mStore Promo Tools: Copy/Paste HTML

mStore Promo Tone Player | Copy/Paste HTML | Banners

With this feature, you can copy the ringtone code and place it on any web site.

Copy/Paste HTML Examples

TMBG

Ghostly.com

World Cup

Delicious Vinyl

Here are the features & benefits:
1. You can paste the code into your web site's template. True customization and integration and fans trust purchases going through your site.

2. You can slice up the code and place a few tones on one page and a few on another. This works great for record labels who have one mStore with tones from multiple artists. For example, Delicious Vinyl has its main store and then The Brand New Heavies showcase only their tones on their page.

3. You can place this code on fan sites who want to help you succeed!

Here's how it works:
1. Upload your audio clips in your mStore (if you haven't done so already).

2. Go to the "Extras" section in your mStore Manager.

3. Select "Extract HTML"

4. Copy the first block of code in the box titled "Export Javascript" - this block of code must be placed within the HEAD tags on your web page. This code supports the audio preview functionality.

5. Copy the second block of code in the box titled "HTML Code" - this code should be placed in the body of your web page. It includes the ringtone titles, audio preview filenames, and selection boxes, which as a whole, makes up an html form. You are welcome to add font style and size tags to the ringtone titles/prices to match your web site.

6. Download the 3 files in the "Download" section. These are components that you host on your site. They include the play/stop buttons and the Flash audio player that powers the audio previews.

mStore Promo Tools: Banners

mStore Promo Tone Player | Copy/Paste HTML | Banners

Banners are a great way to attract attention to your ringtone offer. You can put them on your home page, music page, merchandise section, myspace page, and all other sites where you promote your music. Here are some examples:
View on Site
View on Site
View on Site

Banners are very simple to create. We recommend adding some phone imagery to grab attention. Here is a layered Photoshop file with the basic elements. You can customize this in an image-editing program by just adding your band/label name and saving it as a jpeg.
Download: layered Photoshop file (.psd)
(save to desktop and then load in image-editing program)

Ringtone Blog Buzz: It Really Works!

The oh-so-creative band They Might Be Giants tapped in to the zeitgeist when they recently recorded an exclusive ringtone called "Call Connected to the NSA" poking a little fun at the government's "legal" analysis & monitoring of citizens' phone calls.

Last week, Boing Boing ran a blog entry about it and it just caught on like wildfire! Hundreds of blogs picked up the story and the ringtone sales went through the roof!

Now TMBG has a loyal and large following based on their innovative sounds over the last 24 years, but everyone can learn from what TMBG did in this case:
1. they created a short, original tone about a hot-button issue in today's society
2. the clip was only available as a ringtone
3. they used blogs to get people talking about their tones
4. the blog entries increased TMBG's presence in search engines, which generated more traffic to their web site

So a lot of things came together and that's the beauty of viral promotion. Now all these people have this tone on their phones and they tell two friends and so on, and so on (well, you remember the Faberge Organics shampoo commercial). This is a great way to use mobile (and the web) to promote music.

Rocket Science Tones Really Take Off

Excuse the horrible pun above but it's great to see these rocket scientists find their ringtone niche with authentic rocket countdown ringtones. Their smart and simple blog entry has generated a ton of downloads and they've just "launched!"

And the downloaders are psyched, here's a quote from Bubba:
"I've got the T minus 5 countdown on my Verizon LG VX6000 and it's great. Whenever it rings around a crowd, everyone looks at me as if I'm a Secret Service agent or something.  I think it's the "Mission Control" in the beginning.  Thanks for releasing the ringtone!"

So, you see how easy it is to make the most of your niche - just build an mStore in 10 minutes and promote it on your web site or blog. We have tips to show you the way.

Horror High Tones: check these out!

These tones are really well-produced. Notice how they start off so strong! So, if someone answers the phone quickly, you still get a nice taste of the music. That's the way to do it!

Check out the tones below. If you have an mStore and want one of these promotional ringtone players to put on your site or myspace page, please send an email to Eric.

Find your niche and make the most of it!

Do you own unique audio content that would sound great on phones? Music is a natural fit, but there are so many other creative audio possibilities when it comes to ringtones. With a Xingtone mStore, you can get your unique sounds online in minutes and make money from it. Here are some mStores that are making it happen with niche content:

Spiritual/Motivational Tones
Hare Krishna
Holy Hip Hop
Mormon Ringtones
Christ Pushers

Sports Highlight Tones
LSU Tigers
John Brooks (Oklahoma Sooners)
Bob Ufer (Michigan Wolverines)

Hunting/Wildlife Tones
Hunttones
Choice Accessories
Mountain Man Ringtones

Automobile/Motorcycle Tones
Race-Tones
Norton Motorcycles
Chrome Tones

Comedy Tones
John Cleese
Pot's Greatest Hits

Do you have a niche? If so, build your mStore today and spread your unique sounds around town!

Featured mStore Artist: NOQONTROL

ringtones
press release
flickr photos

Key Promotional Tactics:
1. Very active in creative community
(online & real world)
2. Offering unique, experimental ringtones that you can't find anywhere else
3. Issued upbeat, simple press release to generate buzz

NOQONTROL: “Being an artist involved with mobile media is to be everywhere and nowhere in the same time.
The ringtone format is the shortest musical form ever, not unlike the Japanese form of haiku. The ringtone is not only a messenger but a personal statement. The beauty of it is in its simplicity and its pragmatic poetry” says Noqontrol, a self styled maven of everything chic from ringtones and wallpapers to new media art and entertainment.

Xingtone: NOQONTROL is on track to make a creative impact with his "designer" mobile media collection. That's innovative and we love it. If you look at his flickr testimonials, you can tell that he has serious cred in the creative community and now that he's embraced mobile media, we think his fans and other artists will follow.

Respect Your Phone & Refresh Your Tones!

Ok, where do you stand on the ringtone refresh scale?

1. Ringtone Fanatic: I change my tones every day or two!
2. Ringtone Regular: I change my tones every 1-2 weeks.
3. Boringtoner: I hardly ever change my tones.

If you're a Fanatic or a Regular, all is good! If you fit into that last class, please understand that you now risk the following:
1. You become that friend who NEVER, EVER CHANGES THAT CHEESY RINGTONE!
2. You love a song so much and then you get sick of it because it has been your ringtone for WAY TOO LONG!

What to do? Refresh your ringtones whenever you want with the Xingtone Ringtone Maker. For less than $20, you can create an unlimited number of ringtones with your own music! This is also a great way to avoid having the same ringtone that everyone else has. Be unique, get fanatical - try Xingtone!

Ringtone Revenues Are For Real!

Indie Artists: say this headline 5 times fast, then make this your mantra when it comes to promoting your art through mobile. If you don't offer ringtones now, you can put a Xingtone mStore online in 15 minutes and start making $$$ - it's that easy.

Digital Music News reported some ringtone revenue projections and there's clearly $$$ to be made!!! Excerpt below:

While labels are now feeling a revenue bump from master ringtones, publishers have been making cash since the ringtone format first evolved. Now, both groups will continue to make money this year, according to a projection issued by performance rights organization BMI. The company projects that overall ringtone sales will climb to $600 million this year, a 20 percent increase over levels of $500 million in 2005. The organization - which represents over 300,000 songwriters, composers and music publishers - reported that the market was worth $245 million in 2004, and just $68 million in 2003. According to BMI, those estimates are based on over 360 million individual, detailed ringtone transactions, analyzed by the organization over the past seven consecutive quarters. "We see the market maturing in 2006 with growth fueled by an increase in multimedia handsets and more aggressive marketing by wireless carriers," said BMI vice president of Business Development, Richard Conlon.

Once you're online selling tones, check out Xingtone's mobile marketing tips!

Make Ringtones from DVD Audio

We found a fun product called DVD Audio Ripper that works great with Xingtone.  Make ringtones from any part of your favorite movie FOR FREE!  The possibilities are amazing and limitless!  Here's how it works:

1. DVD Audio Ripper offers a free trial that lets you grab 5 minutes of audio from your DVDs as many times as you like.  For ringtones, that's all you need.  Download & install it..
   


2. Browse through DVD chapters and find the part of the movie that you want to use.
   


3. Use DVD Audio Ripper to grab that segment and save as MP3 on your computer.
   


4. Load MP3 in Xingtone Ringtone Maker
   


5. Cut the ringtone clip that you want to use.
   


6. Send to your phone & download - you're done!
   

CAUTION - this is highly addictive!

Featured mStore Artist: Sonny Rollins

[ web site | ringtones ]

Key Promotional Tactics:
1. Prominent homepage link to ringtones
2. Releasing exclusive ringtone clips before CD release to generate buzz
3. Newsletter promotion
4. Press Release

From Sonny's Camp: Sonny has a new release coming out this summer on his own new label, Doxy Records. For many years Sonny, who is the leading Jazz artist on Planet Earth, has been signed to major record labels. But now, he's an independent artist with his own label, using digital technology and the web as tools of empowerment.

Rather than preview his new music with soundclips, Sonny decided that he wanted to offer his audience something unique, an innovative way to hear his new music. He chose ringtones because it offers his listeners the opportunity to both preview the music, purchase it, and play it - over and over.

In addition, ringtones are, in essence, a form of viral marketing. When someone hears a friend's ringtones and likes them, they want to know where to purchase them. And when they go to buy the ringtones, they are introduced to Sonny's music, as well.

We will be introducing the ringtones in Sonny's next email newsletter, as well as a press release that will be going out to 10,000 people in the Jazz world, both media and listeners, next week. Because he's now an independent artist doing his own marketing, Sonny has wisely decided to utlize new media to reach a new audience. His website serves as the nexus between this beloved artist and his worldwide fan base.

Xingtone's Comments: It's great to see Sonny Rollins, who has been performing for more than 60 years, use mobile to spread the word about his upcoming CD release. Emerging artists should be inspired by such progressive thinking. Unreleased or experimental tones can generate buzz in the clubs & on the street, which as we know, is where it really matters!

Today's Xingmaster: Diana

Very creative people use Xingtone to create their own ringtones and they love it! Let's see what Diane is up to:

Diana (Dalton, GA)
Phone: Nokia 6225
Top 5 Ringtones Made With Xingtone:
1. "Ingrato" Ninel Conde
2. "La Camisa Negra" Juanes
3. "Nina Coqueta" Los Cuates de Sinaloa
4. "Recostada en la Cama" El Chapo
5. "La Carcacha" Selena

Diana's Take: "I like to use Xingtone because it's fun and easy to use. It's always funny to see people's reactions to my unique ringtones when I add special effects using other software and hardware. I also make my own mixes and add ringtones and people always ask me what service I have and I say, "I made my own!"

What's on your phone? Send an email and let us know!

Xingtone's Most Popular Ringtones for Sale or For Free

Time To Make The Ringtones!

Creative Ringtone Tips
What makes a great-sounding ringtone? We certainly agree that it comes down to personal preference. Nevertheless, here are a few creative tips to consider:

What will you use the tone for?
As you know, on most phones, ringtones can serve different functions – to notify you of a call/sms/voicemail, to wake you up in the morning if it’s your alarm clock, to show off new music to friends. Do you want the tone to loop or be one long segment? These different uses can play into the length or type of audio that you use for the tone. Generally, sms and other alerts are shorter than standard ringtones. When you’re showing off new music on your phone, it’s nice to give friends a full 30-second taste of the artist.

Make An Impact Right Away
Your ringtone’s moment of truth is a big deal, don’t you think? It says a lot about you, so get to the point right away! If it appears 15 seconds into your tone, you’ll always end up hearing the intro, that is, unless you’re always scrambling through your bag for 20 seconds every time you get a call! Great tones usually have a short lead-in (2-3 seconds) and then deliver the big payoff before you answer the phone.

Rock The Fade

With Xingtone’s advanced-editing features, you can fine-tune your ringtone with fades in/out and a few other options. If your ringtone starts so strong that you almost have a heart attack whenever it rings, you’ll probably want to consider a short fade-in. A gradual fade out (1-5 seconds) at the end of your tone shows that you’re a professional and in control of your tones!

So what are you waiting for?
Start cranking out some tones with Xingtone!

If you have any personal tips/tricks that you use when creating ringtones, send them to us and we will post them on the site (and of course, give you credit).

Administrative Links

mStore Login

There are two ways to login to your mStore if you would like to make changes. It’s good to bookmark at least one of these:

[1] Go to http://mstore.xingtone.com/creator/login.php, enter your mStore name, and log in with your username and password.

[2] The direct address to manage your mStore is http://yourstorename.mstore.xingtone.com/ management/index.php


mStore Client Support

If you have feedback about the mStore platform, please go to http://www.xingtone.com/support/mstore.htm

mStore Customer Support

If your customers have trouble receiving or downloading ringtones, please direct them to:

http://www.xingtone.com/support/contactSupportstore.htm

mStore Design

After you upload your graphics and add some ringtones, take a look at your mStore and ask “Would someone buy a ringtone from this store?” Here are some stores that serve as good models:

http://supercat.mstore.xingtone.com/ (simple, clean logo with a nice, medium-sized photo of the artist)

http://frogvilleplanet.mstore.xingtone.com/ (very complete list of tones with great descriptions)

Enhanced mStore Design

Did you know that you can completely customize your mStore? Xingtone offers an “Extract HTML” feature, which allows you to take the raw html code for your ringtone clips and place it on any other web page or site where you promote your content. This is very useful if you have your own domain/web site, and want to integrate ringtones into it. Here are some examples:

http://www.theymightbegiants.com

http://www.twistedmobile.com/ringtones.php

To extract your ringtone store code, log in to your store, go to the “Extras” tab and follow the basic instructions there.

Featured mStore Artist: Travis Matte & the Zydeco Kingpins

mStore Success Story: Travis Matte & the Zydeco Kingpins (Cajun/Zydeco)

[ web site :: ringtone store :: Myspace ]
Key Promotional Tactics:
1. link to ringtones in web site navigation
2. prominent link to tones on Myspace page
3. word-of-mouth promotion at gigs

In Travis' words: "I basically promote our ringtones through our website, Myspace, and word of mouth when playing clubs, festivals, etc. In our area and genre of music, we are basically the "Hot band" for the style of music we do in Louisiana. We are also the only band locally that features ringtones to our fans. Cajun/Zydeco is not a huge market like country, rock, etc., but there are musicians that play around the world for a living doing that kind of music!

Xingtone's Comments: We LOVE the fact that Travis is combining real-world and online promotional tactics to generate interest in his band's ringtones. This is the best way to capture the hearts and minds of fans (and to gain more fans). Check out his web site and Myspace page - it's very upbeat and has photos of the band with fans. We get the sense that it's fun to be connected to the band and that translates into respect, trust, and sales of music, ringtones, and other merchandise.

If you have an mStore success story to share and want to be featured here, send email to eric@xingtone.com.

Xingtone Ringtone Maker Software Trick & Tip

Here's an idea.  Did you ever try to drag and drop an audio file over the Xingtone application.  If you do, it will open the file.  That could be really helpful if you have room on your screen for the application and an explorer window that shows all of your files.

Welcome

We just started this blog. We're going to post ideas on how to best use Xingtone products.