The music and ringtone business is being ripped off to the tune of £75m per year, according to software company QPass. It seems people grab free previews of ringtones via their PC and transfer them to their phones.
QPass estimates that by the end of 2007 the “lost revenue” through this loophole could total £230m, and perhaps unsurprisingly QPass has a content-securing solution.
On the other hand, Strategy Analytics reckons the ringtone market will be worth over £5bn in 2008, so the loss appears rather trivial.