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Disco D and Eddie OLoughlin, both of whom are music producers, are pioneers in the new ringtone art form. While today's ringtones for cellphones are bits of existing songs or compositions, a new group of songwriters view the mobile phone as an evolving medium for artistic expression. They are composing original material for cellphones, and they seem to be on to something. OLoughlin, a perfectionist, could benefit from a surprisingly profitable business that generates more than $2 billion each year in global revenues for record labels that license their tunes and the retailers and phone companies that sell ringtones. Musicians everywhere are trying to profit from the trend, movie studios want to also make available little bits of film dialog, and sports figures are recording shout-outs for ringtones. To help them get airplay/phoneplay, such companies as Jamster, a unit of VeriSign, formats music for discussion on mobile services and sells them on its Web site and through TV ads on MTV, BET, and other music-centered networks. Jamster also has its own studios, where engineers take ringtones and replay them on different cellphones to hear how they will sound. The invention of ringtones in Finland and the subsequent success of the industry are described.
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