Electronic Frontier Foundation

ASCAP (the same folks who went after Girl Scouts for singing around a campfire)
appears to believe that every time your musical ringtone rings in
public, you’re violating copyright law by “publicly performing” it
without a license. At least that’s the import of a brief [2.5mb PDF] it filed in ASCAP’s court battle with mobile phone giant AT&T.

This will doubtless come as a shock to the millions of Americans who
have legitimately purchased musical ringtones, contributing millions to
the music industry’s bottom line. Are we each liable for statutory damages (say, $80,000) if we forget to silence our phones in a restaurant?