While it must seem like the world of ringtones will continue to be around forever, there is a very likely possibility that the popularity will eventually begin to dwindle a bit. Speaking for myself, I get mine for free as wavs files converted with software. I only use non-copyrighted material of course, but just cannot see any reason to drop my hard earned cash on such a silly expense.

The ringtone market has received plenty of attention over the past few years, so seeing a New Yorker profile on the ringtone space seems unlikely to yield that much new information — especially since so much of it is focused on the US market, where ringtones are still far behind other parts of the globe. However, in conjunction with a few other articles today, it’s not hard to see the beginnings of trouble in the ringtone market, even as many are celebrating the market’s growth potential.

The New Yorker piece quotes Les Watkins, the vice-president of Music Reports, Inc. on the license deals early ringtone aggregators struck with record labels and musicians, pointing out that the labels clearly took advantage of the upstart providers. “A lot of these aggregator companies were very early players, essentially beholden to the major record labels and the music publishers to get the rights they needed. And, in this country, the music business is a very mature and consolidated business — somewhat collusive, in fact. The aggregators accepted rates and terms that they really didn’t have to accept, and agreed to license the music in such a way that they’re overpaying by a tremendous multiple.” In other words, rather than looking to encourage this market to grow, the recording industry used the opportunity to extract extremely high fees from ringtone providers.