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Can anyone confirm this?

Let's say I own a cd for a song. I put it on my iPod. The same song is available on the iTunes store and is ringtone capable. Do I have to buy the song from iTunes in order to convert it to a ringtone?

Yes.

While it has clearly created quite a few unhappy users, this is true. But, and it seems to be a pretty bg but, only certain songs are licensed for ringtone use.
 
That sucks...Ladytron no longer seems available to be made into a ringtone

Are you sure you bought the song via iTunes in the first place? Oh, now check this -- only the version from the album "Extended Play" seems to work, the other from Witching Hour does not. But weird, I am SURE I bought it as part of Witching Hour, I don't even own Extended Play...

I think it's safe to say there are rough edges to this iTMS ringtone thingy...
 
1. Press cmd+J and check the box to activate viewing the Ringtones
2. Click the Ringtone symbol in the top of the column.

This way you will sort your music library based on the songs Ringtone status. Songs with ringtones will appear grouped together at the top (or bottom if you click twice) of the list.

I don't know...I have just short of 25,000 songs in itunes and I have the ringtones icon in itunes but not one tune is showing up as ringtone-able. I have about 300 purchased tunes. I must be doing something wrong.

EDIT: nevermind, all good now.
 
What is the fuss about?

For the sake of folks new to iPhones, virtually all of the problems discussed in this thread can be fixed LEGALLY for $15.

1. Buy your iTunes song.
2. Burn it onto a CD
3. Rip it back into .mp3 format. Audiophiles, leave me alone!
4. Open the .mp3 file in Audacity (Free. Both Mac and PC. If you have Garage Band, fine. If not, http://audacity.sourceforge.net)
5. Edit the ringtone and save as an .mp3 file.
6. Buy iToner from Ambrosia Software. Drag and drop simplicity for ringtones.
7. Install the ringtone.

You now have a DMA-free copy of the song and a ringtone.
 
there are many reasons. People not paying for music is probably the biggest or the second biggest. The other top reason is bad music in the mainstream.

the corporate monster that the music industry is today should be left to die.

music has been around a lot longer than copyright laws.
 
For the sake of folks new to iPhones, virtually all of the problems discussed in this thread can be fixed LEGALLY for $15.

1. Buy your iTunes song.
2. Burn it onto a CD
3. Rip it back into .mp3 format. Audiophiles, leave me alone!
4. Open the .mp3 file in Audacity (Free. Both Mac and PC. If you have Garage Band, fine. If not, http://audacity.sourceforge.net)
5. Edit the ringtone and save as an .mp3 file.
6. Buy iToner from Ambrosia Software. Drag and drop simplicity for ringtones.
7. Install the ringtone.

You now have a DMA-free copy of the song and a ringtone.

Or....

1. Pay the 1 friggen dollar to get the ringtone.

People amaze me. Downright amaze me. ITS ONE DOLLAR!

Lets see - spend an hour of my time - buy software I don't need, give myself a headache. But hey, I saved enough money to buy a Snickers bar and I 'Stuck it to the Man' - yeeha.
 
For the sake of folks new to iPhones, virtually all of the problems discussed in this thread can be fixed LEGALLY for $15.
...
6. Buy iToner from Ambrosia Software. Drag and drop simplicity for ringtones.
...

SendSong can do that for free.
( a little different but in my opinion even easier)
 
OldTimey...You need to read the Copyright Act!

If you purchase a work, you have every right to change the media format of that work. (Copy your VHS tape onto a DVD, for example, or change your AAC file to .mp3.)
In addition, if playing a ringtone was a public performance, so would be playing an album at a backyard party. A public performance requires that people be invited with the main purpose of hearing or viewing a work. Usually there must also be a fee involved. It has nothing whatsoever to do with ringtones!
 
Can someone tell me who is going to waste their time in browser mode in iTunes to find songs that can be made into ringtones? Unless I am having a *really* blonde moment, I cannot find a way to just look up a song or artist without going through all the hoops that iTunes in browser mode requires. It takes forever just to find a compatible song! Also, why isn't there an easy way to check if songs I already purchased are ringtone ready?

I think I am just going to stick with iToner and Garage Band. Any idea why they made this so difficult? Do they know no one is likely to really do this and do they know that we will all probably stick with our hacks that are already working just fine (and free)? Why bother with this? They must know this is really user unfriendly.

Maybe I'm being quick to judge. Maybe it's just a fluke that the bells are showing up for me (haven't tried to make a ringtone; don't really know that I want to spend the money). I suppose since they didn't make an official announcement that it's up, and since I only found it by accident, it might not be 100% ready; but I did what SJ did in the demo to find songs, so I'm thinking that is how they intend this to work. I just think it could be better.

Even Steve Jobs had trouble using the new ringtone maker. It is poorly thought out. Most users aren't smart enough or care enough to jump through all these hoops. I bet they release an update within the month that makes it far easier for the average joe. The ringtone tab under the library section shouldn't be there unless an iPhone has been hooked in. I can see it now... Someone makes a big deal that Apple's ringtone maker isn't compatible with their Treo. They should really make it clear that these ringtones will only work on the iPhone.
 
If you purchase a work, you have every right to change the media format of that work. (Copy your VHS tape onto a DVD, for example, or change your AAC file to .mp3.)
In addition, if playing a ringtone was a public performance, so would be playing an album at a backyard party. A public performance requires that people be invited with the main purpose of hearing or viewing a work. Usually there must also be a fee involved. It has nothing whatsoever to do with ringtones!

From ASCAP:

"A public performance is one that occurs either in a public place or any place where people gather (other than a small circle of a family or its social acquaintances.)"


So your backyard party is OK. Playing music through your boombox in a crowded train station is not.
 
the corporate monster that the music industry is today should be left to die.

music has been around a lot longer than copyright laws.

fine, kill the monster. but how are musicians supposed to be paid? You gonna stop stealing their music?
 
Yeah, there are several freebies.

SendSong can do that for free.
( a little different but in my opinion even easier)

Sendsong looks pretty good, but I like to change my tones with some frequency. (Unlike Yeeha who seems to be quite happy with one. Probably something from the Deliverance soundtrack.) I like having a company like Ambrosia behind it cause if there are problems (like when iTunes 7.4 came out), they fix it right away.
 
Couldn't agree more !!!!

I guarantee this whole $0.99 fiasco was AT&Ts and the music industry's doing. If you remember at the 2007 Macworld Keynote when the iPhone was introduced, you were going to be able to turn any song you had on your iPhone into a ringtone. Makes sense, it's an iPod for crying out loud! Then this ability somehow vanished when the iPhone shipped. I'm sure it was a deal with the devil to get it out. Took longer than they expected. I'm sure Apple had the app all ready to go day one, but AT&T and the music industry want to milk every nickel and dime out of you that they can. :eek:

The app itself is VERY Apple. The repaying for a song you already have is ridiculous. Very non-Apple.

Let's see, pay again for a song that is already authorized to you in your iTunes account and already has DRM so only you can play it? WTF?? This is one of the most evil things ever created. Don't support it. Use the hack. :cool:

He's right !!! You're paying for the song twice, and for just 30 seconds of it, just for a stupid ringtone. Don't buy into this ripoff....it should be free to apple users anyway. 400-500 bucks for a phone and now they nickle and dime you to death. This is sounding so 'micro' soft to me...everything is at a cost.
 
Still pretty cool...

Probably won't use this feature very much, but it is still well done. I know a lot of people will complain about the cost and limited features, but for someone who has no idea how to put ringtones on their phone this is solid. I can make my own, so I won't use it, but others will get a lot of use out of this.
 
Let's say I own a cd for a song. I put it on my iPod. The same song is available on the iTunes store and is ringtone capable. Do I have to buy the song from iTunes in order to convert it to a ringtone?

As much as I agree with you that it would be nice if this was possible, I don't think there's a feasible way to confirm ownership of a track that hadn't been purchased from iTMS itself.

How would the store know that the track you've already put on your iPod is the same as one available in iTunes? You can't rely on ID3 tags since anyone could edit those. When you put the CD in the drive, you can't even rely on CDDB because I believe those are also user-submitted. Do CDs all have unique tags that could be used to look up what they are? Even if they do, there's no proof it's yours, and not a CD from a friend or from the library.

So legally they probably needed to be held tighly accountable for ringtone control, and for this lovely outcome you can thank the RIAA. Yes, robertmorris2, you can thank the RIAA for forcing Apple to "nickle and dime you to death". Sounds like Microsoft, you say? The difference is Microsoft is happy to do it. Apple at least went in kicking and screaming on our behalf.
 
You are violating copyright laws with your "hacks." Musicians work atarin, and they only authorize the use of their music as a ringtone to people who pay for it.


I tried iToner shortly after all the ringtones became available on iTunes and have concluded that iTunes, though limited on selection right now, is still the best choice for a ringtone.

Why?

iTunes allows us to actually choose the section of a song we want to make into a ringtone and control the fade-in. Once we are happy with the customizing, we can then buy the ringtone and sync it to the iphone and add it to whatever contacts we wish.

iToner was very simple to use. After starting iToner, I would simply drag any song to the iPhone graphic and then hit the sync button. The WHOLE song is then copied and appears in the ringtones selection on the iPhone. Yes the whole song. When a call comes in, the whole song begins to play from the very beginning. If you have a song with low volume at the beginning, well you won't know your iPhone is ringing for several seconds unless you can feel it vibrate. Then you have the fact that the iPhones speaker is not that loud to begin with. Some of the iPhones included ringtones can insure you hear when a call comes in because of their varied sound pitch. You can't always get that with a song.

Well, I deleted the songs from my iPhone and deleted iToner. To me it' not worth the $15. For that money they should have allowed the song customizing that iTunes gives us. Besides, iTunes is legal.

Hope this helps some.
 
I wanted to try out the ringtone service through Apple, specifically to find out if iTunes Plus songs would create DRM-encoded ringtones. So I try and find an iTunes Plus song that supports ringtones (and there aren't many, I really only found a couple of Coldplay songs). So I bought "The Scientist", paying $1.29.

Then I go to make a ringtone, and I select the portion of the song that I want, but when I go to buy it, I get the following error:

Could not create ringtone. An unknown error occurred (-42160).

Now the only reason I bought this song was to try out the ringtone service (I already own the song on CD). Yes, I know I can do the easy workarounds to use my own song, but I wanted to try out Apple's service so I would know how it works. Now I want my money back, since I paid for essentially nothing.
 
ASCAP is not the law...

From ASCAP:

"A public performance is one that occurs either in a public place or any place where people gather (other than a small circle of a family or its social acquaintances.)"


So your backyard party is OK. Playing music through your boombox in a crowded train station is not.

Read the law. Not ASCAP's selections from the law:
A) except as provided in subparagraph (B), communication of a transmission
embodying a performance or display of a work by the public reception
of the transmission on a single receiving apparatus of a kind commonly
used in private homes
Boombox: OK
iPhone: OK
 
ok for the past hour i have been trying to activate the ringtone tab in the music i library. i have

-bought that stupid aretha franklin song with a bell next to it hoping it would
activate it
-made a ringtone by store>make a ringtone.
-plugged in my iphone into my computer

none of these activated the bells for me and now im getting frustrated. anybody know any other ways i can try???
 
I suppose if you own the track and or CD then it is fine. There is no way to control this piracy however, so the RIAA needs to recoup losses any way it can. This is one way to do it. If you don't like apple's policy, then don't pay for it. take your tunes and do what you will. (provided you didn't steal the music).
 
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