Taptu Mobile Search » Dear Aunt Enna

Is it illegal to make your own ringtone?

Vero — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 08:01:40 +0000

Dear Aunt Enna,

I own many great CDs, like ABBA, Simply Red and Bon Jovi’s Greatest Hits, and would love to make ringtones out of them. However, I am a law-abiding citizen and look up to your advice in the hope that you can tell me whether I can legally do this.

Bobby the drummer

Dear Bobby,

Now I’m no attorney, so I’ve consulted legal eagle Nilay Patel at Engadget to give you some answers.

To put it simply, it’s legal to make ringtones from album tracks you own. Since making a ringtone doesn’t count as a derivative work, you’re not infringing any copyrights. The exception, because there’s always got to be one, comes in the form of the iTunes Music Store, whose licensing rights don’t extend to ringtones. Pretty simple, unh?

Regardless of law, I beg you, please think twice before putting everyone around you through the pain of “Dancing Queen” at eight in the morning on the train.

Love & teacakes,
Aunt Enna

Can a mobile website find out my phone number from me visiting?

Vero — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 08:18:26 +0000

Dear Aunt Enna,

I have a brand new Sony Ericsson k800i. My problem is that I don’t want to use the web on my phone outside of my operator’s portal, because I’m worried the websites will take my phone number when I visit and send me spam messages afterwards.

Do I need to worry about what websites I look at or what they can do to my phone?

A paranoid mobile newbie

Dear Paranoid,

A website can only find out a few basic pieces of information, but at no point are they given access to your phone number.

They’ll find out your user agent, which is a long line of garble that helps them display the page correctly for your needs. They can also generally find out your country and operator. They are not interested in your phone number or the colour of your underpants.

Now, please take the tin foil hat off your head and go have some fun on your phone! Do yourself a favour and sort yourself out with some more interesting sites. How about Facebook, Wapedia for a mini’fied version of Wikipedia or Engadget, for a start?

Love & teacakes,
Aunt Enna

Aunt Enna demystifies the mobile web

Vero — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 08:20:12 +0000

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been spending loads of time with early testers, picking their brains for feedback and ideas after giving them a peek into Taptu, to help us bring out the most useful and enjoyable app to use on mobile and on the other mini screens that fill our lives nowadays.

During those conversations, we’ve also heard plenty of questions about the mobile world. Some people worried about security, or costs, others just wondered what fun stuff could be found on the mobile web. We thought “That’s no good! We don’t want people to feel nervous, or worse, be bored because they can’t find anything great to do on their phone!”

To tackle your questions and demystify the mobile web a little, we’ve roped in our ~~totally mad~~, hrmm, very lovely Aunt Enna. She’s a real wonder for her age, she knows how to send text messages, can program her own VCR (who still has a VCR nowadays!?) and makes fabulous teacakes.

So join me in welcoming Aunt Enna to the team! She’s just off sharpening her pencil in preparation for answering your questions, but don’t hesitate to leave a comment or email Enna if you’d like her to answer your questions.

To be sure you don’t miss out on our dear old Enna’s first foray as a writer, subscribe to our RSS feed or enter your email address in the box on the right and we’ll deliver the latest post every day straight to your inbox!