People should be paid not to play their horrid duff duff ringtones!

Almost all my copyright-related stories start like this ... WTF!

Apparently ASCAP thinks playing a ringtone is copyright violation. Still shocked about that girl scout story as well. Eeek!

Quote from EFF:

ASCAP's outlandish claim is part of its battle with major mobile carriers (including Verizon and AT&T) over whether ASCAP is owed any money for "public performances" of the musical ringtones sold by the carriers. The carriers point out that the owners of the musical compositions (i.e., songwriters and music publishers) are already paid for each ringtone download, but ASCAP claims that it's owed another royalty for the "public performances" (i.e., ringing in a restaurant) of those same ringtones.