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Music ring tones
A new version of ring tones, often called either music ring tones, voice tones or true tones, now use actual pieces of music, along with all lyrics and the entire song backing music, including backing singers. They are usually contained in MP3, WAV, QCP, or AMR format that can be used as a ring tone on many Series 60, Symbian or smartphones. Many cell phone manufacturers are including voice ring tones on most of their newly released phones, including Motorola, Nokia and Sony Ericsson.

Popularity
Ring tones, along with operator logos, have proven a popular method of personalising phones — a major industry has popped up to tailor to the needs of people to customise their phones, and newer phones include features to allow users to create their own tones. Many people enjoy their personalisation of the phones, but some find certain ring tones annoying in public and in certain public situations. One of the classic ring tones was parodied by The Daily Show's Stephen Colbert as "You're annoying/Stupid douchebag/Turn your phone off now"

Many companies have set up businesses selling ring tones, advertising them on television and web sites. One criticism of the industry is the subscription some companies lock customers into, requiring them to actively cancel their account or be charged for unwanted messages and ring tones sent to them on a weekly basis.

The sale of ring tones has also been a massive boost to the record industry, earning them extra revenues through royalties.

The newer phones equipped with Bluetooth or PC-link up however, allow users to transfer ringtones created on a PC, to their phone, for free. The user could even record themselves or their own tones and place them on the phone.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses some material from the Wikipedia article "Ringtones."