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mobile music Japan - FAQ
1. How big is the mobile music industry in Japan?
About US$ 1 billion, and growing rapidly. Mobile music is already a very important part of
music distribution in Japan, and creates new markets which did not exist before. There are many
more markets in addition to ringtones (chaku-melo).
2. Our company owns music rights. How can we sell music via mobile in Japan?
This depends on which kind of rights you own: are these full rights including the
performing artists rights, or do you own the text or the music (the work of the composer),
or have you produced ringtone files? In each case the business development and licensing
and royalty payment producedures are very different. Please contact us. We are
presently working with a number of music companies developing mobile music
business and we may be able to help:
please feel free to email us.
In other parts of the world, some mobile operators directly sell music to their customers, and
as a music owner you can directly sell your music via the mobile operator. Note that in Japan
this is not the case, and only very rarely will you be able to do business directly with the
mobile operators (DoCoMo, KDDI/AU, Vodafone, TuKa).
3. How and when did the mobile music industry start and what are the major steps of development?
Mobile music started with monophonic ringtones, followed by polyphonic ringtones (chaku-melo)
introduced by DoCoMo on i-Mode in 1999. KDDI/AU introduced 20 to 30 second long parts of songs
in MPEG format (Chaku-Uta) in December 2003, and KDDI/AU introduced full song downloads (Chaku-uta-full)
in October 2004.
4. What is the state-of-the-art of mobile music in Japan?
Today top range phone models in Japan can download full songs (Chaku-uta-full), play 3D surroundsound
(standard on the FOMA 9001i series handsets by DoCoMo), and combine JAVA applications with sound for
a variety of music games and music applications.
5. Do people really want to pay for downloading songs to their mobile phones?
Yes they do. Everday a substantial percentage of Japanese people purchase
at least one ringtone for download into their mobile phone. There have been more
Chaku-Uta downloads on KDDI-AU mobile phones alone than on iTunes in the US, although KDDI/AU
has a much smaller customer base. Therefore, relatively speaking, song downloads to mobile phones
are potentially at least as desired by customers than fixed line downloads such as i-Tunes of today.
"Chaku-Melo" is an abbreviated form of "Chakushin melody". "Chaku shin" means: arrival of a signal or
arrival of a message. "Chaku-Melo" combines the first syllable of "chakushin" and the first syllable of "Melody".
(Similar abbreviations are very often used in the Japanese language: for example "Karaoke" is the abbreviation for "Kara - Orchestra",
where "kara" means empty, i.e. Karaoke = Empty Orchestra).
7. What are "chaku-melo"?
Chaku-Melo are ringing tones. Initially (pre-1999) ringing tones where single voice synthetic sounds. From 1999, polyphonic ringing
tones were introduced. Initially polyphonic ringing tones had 4 voices, and with time the number of voice
was increased as technologies and the equipment of mobile phones improved.
Polyphonic ringing tones today in Japan typically have 32 voices plus additional facilities to add original instrument sounds.
8. What does "chaku-uta" mean?
"Chaku-Uta" is an abbreviated form of "Chakushin uta". "Chaku shin" means: arrival of a signal or
arrival of a message. "Uta" means a "song" in Japanese.
9. What are "chaku-uta"?
Chaku-uta are songs derived from the original sound recording by the performing artists and compressed used MPEG format.
While the limited bandwidth and storage in mobile phones today still requires considerable compression, with time
the quality of chaku-uta is expected to improve and come closer to the quality of CDs or DVD recordings. Latest
phones can reproduce chaku-uta in stereo, or even in 3D surround-sound quality.
10. What about digital rights control? Can I give my ringtones and Chaku-uta to my friends?
Digital rights are fairly strictly controlled in Japan, and generally it is not possible to move
chaku-melo or chaku-uta from one phone to another. Generally when you purchase a new phone or
change your phone, in many cases you have to purchase the songs again.
11. I live in Japan. How can I purchase and download "chaku-uta" (ringtones) or "chaku-melo" (songs)?
You purchase ringing melodies and music pieces (songs) from content providers listed on the menus of i-Mode, EZweb
and Vodafone Live, depending on your choice of mobile phone service provider.
In some countries ringing tones are sold directly by the mobile phone operator, or via premium SMS. In Japan premium-SMS does
not exist, and the mobile phone operators generally do not directly sell content (there are some exceptions). Ringing tones
and music generally is sold through the mobile operators mobile internet services: i-Mode, EZweb and Vodafone Live!
12. Can I buy ringing tones and music with premium SMS in Japan as I do in Europe?
Premium SMS does not exist in Japan. You purchase ringing tones and music through the mobile operators mobile internet menu
(i-mode, EZweb or Vodafone Live!).
13. I do not want to pay. Are there free ringtones?
Yes, sometimes you may be able to obtain specific ringtones for "free".
Sometimes companies give ringtones away for free to advertise particular products.
Since companies incur costs and usually have to pay roalties for ringtone downloads,
there is almost always a business reason for giving ringtones away for free, such as
advertising a product, or requesting you to supply your personal data, so that this
company can include you in their potential customer base for future direct mailing.
Read more about telecom markets and technologies in Japan
