I’m not a ringtones guy, but since Apple has gone and made ringtones so darned easy and fun to create, I thought I’d go ahead and make one for myself. Although charging an additional ninety-nine cents to make a ringtone on top of the ninety-nine cents I already paid to buy the song is nothing short of highway robbery, I think I’ve found an even bigger problem: consistency. I was disappointed to discover that less than a third of the songs I’ve purchased from the iTunes Store are eligible to be turned into a ringtone, but that’s not my real concern. After scanning through my eligible songs looking for a run ringtone candidate, I settled on Dani California from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. But whoops, it’s not eligible. No wait a minute, it is eligible. Actually, mind numbingly, it’s both eligible and not eligible:
How did I end up with two purchased copies of this song? I pre-ordered the Stadium Arcadium album, which prompted the first song on the album, Dani California, to download immediately. When the full album was released I received the entire album as a download, which included another copy of Dani California. So here are two copies of the same song, both from the same album, both purchased from iTunes, and one of them is eligible to be a ringtone and the other isn’t. How do you get that wrong?
I know that there are many millions of songs available through the iTunes Store, so there are plenty of opportunities for random errors. And I know that the scattered and seemingly random eligibility for ringtones is entirely the fault of the record labels, who seem content to let some songs be turned into additional revenue and not others. But if you’re going to charge me extra money for something that should absolutely positively have been included in the price I originally paid for the music in the first place, then you don’t get to make mistakes like this.
Just to be clear: neither copy of Dani California was a single; they’re both listed as being from the same Stadium Arcadium album.
Beyond the recorded purchase date and the different artwork, there is literally no difference between the two copies of this song. And if you’re wondering, none of the other songs on the album are ringtone-eligible; it was the pre-order copy (dated April 4th, 2006) and not the full-album-download copy (dated May 9th) that’s eligible.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not bitter. The beginning of John Frusciante’s guitar solo at the end of Dani California sure makes for a sweet ringtone. But before I go making any more of them, I think I’ll wait for iTunes to at least decide whether or not a given song is eligible.
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