Another Hang-Up

Ringtone sales are falling. It peaked in 2006 and last year, there was a $90 million LOSS in sales. Why, do you suppose?

According to Richard Conlon, of BMI, "third-party software" can quickly and easily make ringtones...at little to no cost rather than the $2 or $3 a customer pays to purchase a ringtone from a wireless carrier.

Posting-whores in forums, and over-posting bloggers who offer discographies and all the new releases, blithely tell the music industry, "think up a new way to make money." Ringtone sales are falling because technology makes it easy to steal. If ringtones were ten cents, most would rather steal, just as they'd rather have the music free than even pay a "nice price" for a CD or the e-music budget rate for a downloaded album.

P2PP is the answer. Peer to Peer Pressure. When someone happily crows about "sharing" and offering up another dozen items with more to come, curb your enthusiasm, and let that person know that selfishness has a price of its own. It means less music produced, less old music re-issued with bonus tracks, less record stores to browse, and a lot of people unemployed or worse.

Human nature is that the same way we can't and won't stop buying SUV's, motor-boating over lakes and the animals living in them, or abusing the environment or being selfish in so many ways unless law enforcement and sensor devices and surveillance cameras deter us...some of us will never stop stealing music at a dangerously hurtful level. Short-sighted people. You'll answer for all of this with decreased quality of life, and your call for help will not find anyone on the line, no matter what catchy ringtone you stole.