British Library sells animal ringtones

Downloadable ringtones are not nearly as big in the USA as in the rest of the world, where nearly everyone seems to be offering customized sounds for mobile phones:

The British Library . . . has the world’s largest animal sound archive, which is regularly used for research purposes and some have been issued on CD. Now they are being made available to two companies that sell ringtones.

The first animal ringtones will be available on the Internet later this week for the latest “polyphonic” mobiles. The sounds are downloaded for between £1.50 and £4 each . . .

The innovative use of the archive could prove to be an important moneyspinner for the British Library. Downloading ringtones is already very big business, generating £2.5 billion a year. However, some of the sounds could prove as irritating as the existing tones: besides the raucous screeches of the Amazonian parrot, the grunts of pigs and the thuds of a gorilla beating its chest will also be available.

Posted by David on July 6, 2003 9:47 PM