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Ring Tones ?

Rapper fifty Cent makes big money in ring tone biz.  Yes, rapper 50cent has earned over twenty five million in the online the music ringtones.

50 Cent who presides over G-Unit owns a diverse portfolio of businesses that includes apparel, ringtones, video games and even a line of fiction books

U.S. ringtone sales totaled $500 million last year and should increase to $600 million this year, according to data from songwriter and music publisher trade group BMI. Globally, ringtone sales were $4.4 billion last year, according to Billboard, up from $3.7 billion in 2004.

By comparison, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) said that sales of physical CDs, cassettes and videos fell 7.6 percent last year.

So can ringtones save the music business? They have, after all, grown so popular that even Billboard tracks them.

And it's the one area of the business where people appear to be willing to pay a premium price, an interesting twist in an era when many music lovers scoff at paying more than 99 cents to download a song from places like Apple's (Research) iTunes.

Ringtones, particularly master tones, which play actual sections from the studio version of a song, often cost between $2.50 and $3.50 to download. Pricing is usually set by carriers, such as Verizon (Research), Sprint (Research) and Cingular, which give a cut to record labels.

The record companies are happy for new sources of revenue. EMI Group, one of the world's largest music companies, said that mobile music sales increased nearly 140 percent during the first six months of its most recent fiscal year.

Plus, music executives say that ringtones serve as a marketing tool that can help lift sales of singles and albums. "The beauty of ringtones is that they are both a commercial and promotional product in one," said Tom Ryan, senior vice president of digital and mobile strategy and development for EMI Group. "Airplay, if you will, of cell phones ringing in schools, malls and city blocks helps drive sales."

Artists are also catching on. Nick Thomas, the 21-year old lead singer and guitarist for The Spill Canvas, a rock band signed to independent label 111 Records, said he's had fans tell him that they first heard the group's music because of friends' ringtones.

"People may not own as many physical CDs anymore, but they can go to their friends and say I have this ringtone for my phone," said Thomas. 111 Records has a distribution deal with EastWest, a label owned by Warner Music Group (Research), and ringtones for some of The Spill Canvas's songs are available at the EastWest Web site.

But one wireless analyst said he's not sure how much longer the music industry can depend on strong growth in ringtone sales.

David Chamberlain, principal analyst with tech consulting firm In-Stat, said that as cell phone makers like Nokia (Research) and Motorola (Research) start to sell more phones that also serve as digital music players, people might be less likely to want to pay a premium price for a ringtone.

"People that were enthusiastically buying ringtones are now buying phones that can play MP3 files. That may help to sweep ringtones aside. I'm not saying ringtones will vanish but I don't see huge growth," Chamberlain said.

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 In 2009