Apple Thoughts: ASCAP: Ringtone Going Off = Public Performance

"ASCAP (the same folks who went after Girl Scouts for singing around a campfire) appears to believe that every time your musical ringtone rings in public, you're violating copyright law by "publicly performing" it without a license. At least that's the import of a brief it filed in ASCAP's court battle with mobile phone giant AT&T. This will doubtless come as a shock to the millions of Americans who have legitimately purchased musical ringtones, contributing millions to the music industry's bottom line. Are we each liable for statutory damages (say, $80,000) if we forget to silence our phones in a restaurant?"

They defended this idiocy, in an effort to allay fears of mass lawsuits, by telling people that it's the businesses selling tones they're after, not the people playing them. Instead, as the EFF notes, they've created a situation where they're pre-emptively accusing everyone of piracy and dodging royalties, but promising not to act.

If anyone wonders why people pirate music, here you have a big huge glaring reason: they hate the damn music business and the people in the offices that pull the strings and as much as I'd like to believe the artists themselves aren't behind this, I don't see any objections from bands over these sorts of shenanigans.