John Gruber agrees with most commentators: the ringtones pricing (and restriction) model is a racket, aimed to bring more cash to the record companies and to Apple.

Surprisingly, I disagree. It’s not a racket. You’re paying for the privilege of abusing and mis-representing a song for the purpose of identifying a phone call. This turns a piece of music into a completely different entity. It’s not merely a change in context. It’s a change in form and in function.

But that’s the musician in me speaking: when I wrote music I was very precious about ensuring that people heard the full track. I weep for those listeners who skip through the end of a song, or only listen to their favourite bit. Music isn’t supposed to be heard like that. You’ll gather from this that I believe the whole concept of ringtones to be wrong from a musicology viewpoint. Sure, design ringtones for that sole purpose, just don’t hack about some artist’s work so that you can tell when your Mum is calling you.