Q. What is more annoying than hearing Wagner’s Flight of the Valkyrie played in midi music style on a website over and over again?
A. Hearing it come from your friend’s pocket over and over again.
In my mind, Ringtones are the Musak of the 2K’s. With the rise in cell phone usage, there is a much larger market for the swinging sounds of Sony portable keyboards than there was for the light elevator music in the 1980’s. According to London based telecommunications consultants the Arc Group, the worldwide sale of ringtones is a $3.5Billion dollar industry. With revenues split between the original artists, the recording industry and the telecommunications industry, that $3.5Billion made up approximately 10% of revenues for the music industry in 2003.