Airtel, a leading mobile phone services provider in India introduced ‘Song Catcher’. The minute you hear a tune you really like and want to set as your caller tune, all you need to do is dial 393 and upload 20 seconds of audio from the song being heard, and it automagically get’s set as your caller tune!
Simple isn’t it? Only that when I saw the advertisement, I almost ran out and sold my shares from Bharti Airtel because I was afraid they’d be sued for infringing copyright laws. What the ad. told me was that one could record 20 seconds of music heard anywhere and use it as their caller tune, which set off alarms in my head.
Fortunately, what really happens is that the 20 second clip is simply run through music recognition technology that identifies the actual song and then sets that to your caller tune [phew].
But it still raises doubts in my mind as to what copyright infringements hold against Airtel for actually allowing/facilitation it’s customers to record 20 second clips of music off the air, and storing them with Airtel for any small period of time.
The ad. was cute though.
2 comments ↓
Well that waz nuts..you would have thought before selling your shares…No probs dear…Well thatz Ups and downs of life….To shape your life you have to go through many bad expriences in life…and this was one…Take it as experience.. and dear there will be no copyright issues with this…coz they are running this company with lakhs of coustomers…..the stratergy makers may have work on this issue too…:)…and yes the Ad is cute..
Cheers,
Prince.
[Reply]
.. but thanks for the advice
Keep coming back!
[Reply]
Leave a Comment