On Friday, I mentioned how record labels are chronically unable to innovate, particularly when it comes to mobile music, beyond devising attempts to get people to pay for the same content over and over. Here some wonderful examples from a Reuters story on the music industry’s (misguided) high hopes for mobile:

Within a matter of weeks, several wireless operators are expected to introduce musical “alert tones” — a snippet of a song lasting between two and five seconds, that users can assign to play when they receive incoming text messages and voice mail, similar to a ringtone.

Sony BMG offers a series of spoken-word alert tones from such artists as Anthony Hamilton and Cassidy, available on all major wireless carriers. Company sources say they will expand the selection to clips of actual songs as well once U.S. wireless operators request them. Sources say Universal Music Group has converted “hundreds” of tracks into alert tones, including Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” 50 Cent’s “Candy Shop” and “In Da Club” and Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl.” Universal, the world’s biggest record company, also is creating original, made-for-mobile alerts tones by “key artists.”

And it doesn’t stop there. A company called Endtones seeks to replace the beeping that occurs when a call has been dropped, concluded or otherwise disconnected with a musical alert.

Endtones? Seriously? Is this anything other than greed-driven stupidity?

[tags]mobile, mobile music, ringtones, endtones[/tags]