DailyTech - How Low Can You Go? RIAA Introduces the “Ringle”

Submit News

Blog: Gadgets How Low Can You Go? RIAA Introduces the “Ringle”
Tom Corelis (Blog) - September 13, 2007 8:58 PM

30 comment(s) - last by Xietsu.. on Sep 22 at 1:52 AM

Doomed to an early death

Everyone, meet the “ringle.” It’s a CD single! It’s a ringtone! It’s $6 or $7! It’s the latest idea to come out of the RIAA’s wondrously brilliant "think" tank – the same entity responsible for such gems of business logic like suing your own customers and running your own promoters out of business.

The ringle is a slip-sleeved CD single packaged with a “free” downloadable ringtone. I suppose the idea isn’t all that bad: if consumers are out there buying CD singles, why not throw in a ringtone or two to go with it?

The devil, however, is in the details. First, how many people actually buy CD singles anymore? As far as I can tell, the only person who does in my zip code is me. CD singles are dying a slow death, done in by the grubby hands of MP3 and the polished-white blade of iTunes. The last time I saw a real-life dedicated music store — which is also dying, sadly – with a decent-sized selection of CD singles had to have been before even the original, true Napster. Just how exactly does the RIAA think they can drum up a market from a group of people that would much rather not get their music through physical transactions, especially when they’d pay six times the price to do so?

Am I saying the ringle is hopelessly doomed? No. Despite the stupid name -- more on that in a minute -- I suppose if the RIAA really wanted to it could somehow force the ringle into a decent market space. But in order to do that they’d need to promote it with a public face that’s not associated with bilking dead grannies in courts over charges of downloading gangster rap. In order to stop doing that … well, let’s just stop right here and dismiss the idea as impossible.

Second, let me be the seemingly first person to say that all these stupid product and website names need to stop! Which pre-school did the folks at the RIAA pull “ringle” from? Will the toddler get royalties for his – and I use this term loosely – ingenuity? I command the name to immediately die, and suffer an eternity in stupid-word hell right next to other gems like Joost, Flickr, KRZR, and their progenitor, blog.

I suppose there is a silver-lining for the soon-to-be “ringle” train wreck. Hopefully, the ringtone-portion of the ringle will help undercut the undeserving ringtone market: by selling something that is essentially a fair-use right for legal music buyers, the ringtone market is effectively dumbing consumers of their own rights. It’s pleasing to see that at least the RIAA – of all things – recognizes this, even though I doubt its decision was probably made out of altruism.

Besides, how hard is it to make your own? There are plenty of free tools and services that offer to do it for you, and the actual steps aren’t that involved.

Comments

Threshold

Username
Password
remember me

This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled

RE: I <3 RIAA

By Dactyl on 9/14/2007 5:29:12 AM , Rating: 5

Maybe the RIAA is just doing this so it can claim that for every song someone illegally downloads, the RIAA loses $6.

Parent

RE: I <3 RIAA

By Polynikes on 9/15/2007 2:57:38 PM , Rating: 2

That's probably true. Most goods' prices are based on what people are willing to pay. In the "ringle's" case, prices are whatever the heck the RIAA wants them to be. How ridiculous.

Parent