Someone in the Malaysian ringtones industry e-mailed me this heartfelt frustration and I decided to post it here for general comment, if any:
“We provide ringtone downloads on the web and we have been paying to two bodies – the reproduction/artist and the publishers. Some U.S. publishers are asking for more. We would like to seek your opinion and suggestions.
This is what we pay here:
Assume per mono ringtone download cost US$1.00
The telcos take 50% of the fee
-We pay US$0.07 for reproduction
-We further pay US$0.10 to publisher
-On top of per download fee, some “publishers” are charging US$50 per song title we carry (which means if you wants to sell 1000 ringtones, you have to pay US$50 x 1000 = US$50,000 so called upload fee + 10% per download).
Recently one publisher is asking for “more” by requesting us to pay the per-song upload fee for different short code (or brand) we own. Which means if you sell your ringtone using more than 1 short code or brand, each short code or brand you need to pay that US$50 per song fee.
It doesn’t make sense since different short code or brand is marketing strategy and sales mechanism. It’s like asking you to pay for every new sales hotline you use!
Is this something being charged in Japan or UK?
On top of what we paid to the bodies, the label is asking for “artist name display copyright“. The publishers told us to ignore them but we would like to know if anybody pay to display artist name beside the ringtone song title? If yes, what kind of fee we are talking about?
With the way the publishers ask for the fees, it’s almost impossible to pay or make any money. If content providers can’t make money, it’ll only hurt the industry. We will like to seek International industry player’s opinion. If possible, I wish you can forward my question to some of the top industry gurus and seek their opinion as well. Really hope you can help.”
((Graphic Courtesy: Claude Bossett: AppliedIdeas.net))
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