Penalty to ringtone providers

Court hands out stiff penalty to ringtone providers

Justin Bieber has been known to get many a young lass hot and bothered, but alleged misuse of the teen idol's starpower received a decidedly icy reception in Federal Court proceedings yesterday.

Two subsidiaries of mobile ringtone and games provider Mobile Active were fined a combined $375,000 by the Federal Court, after it found they engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct when they aired four television advertisements that purported to sell one-off products that were actually subscription services.

The case, brought by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission, involved TV commercials promoting mobile phone ringtones, including the song One Time by Bieber and mobile games such as Space Invaders and Doodle Jump.

The court found both companies generated $58,064 in revenue in response to the advertisements and the Bieber promotion was responsible for more than half of the total sales.

The Bieber promotion charged users a joining fee of $13.20 and the company subsequently collected payment of $6.60 every six days for the subscription service.

The Bieber commercial had text at the bottom of the screen stating it was a subscription service, but the court found that the small text was difficult to read and the explanation inadequate, especially as the target audience was teenagers.

"The use of the word subscribe in my view was totally inadequate to inform the adult viewer, let alone a viewer under the age of 18, that what was being offered was a subscription to a broader service," justice Annabelle Bennett said.

(Published by The Australian - April 28, 2011)