Motorola VA76r, Rogers Canada, and Me

Ruckus

So I just got one of these phones, works great except for one veeeery annoying thing. The carrier, Rogers, has locked some features out including the ability to apply any ringtone except for the defaults and ones you buy from them. I emailed and asked them about it, spoilered response:

Dear [Ruckus],

Thank you for taking the time to write to us, we appreciate your use of online customer service. In your recent email, you have informed us that you are unable to save your MP3?s as ring tunes on your wireless phone. Unlike MP3 music used for personal consumption and entertainment, ring tunes are a form of public performance and thus Rogers Wireless must ensure that every track used as a ring tune on the phone has Digital Rights Management, i.e. purchased from a legitimate source. This protects Rogers and ensures that labels and artists receive compensation for their music. There is a misconception that Rogers customers can obtain MP3 files from the Internet, side load these files onto their Wireless phones and use them as ring tunes, but this is not the case. Customers are prohibited from using copyrights and other intellectual property assets, registered or otherwise, without license or permission,hence cannot set side loaded music as ring tunes on their Rogers phones.Ring tunes can be purchased via navigate Mobile Internet or at www.ringtunes.rogers.com. Thank you for choosing Rogers. You are a Valued Customer and we appreciate your business. For future email correspondence with respect to this e-mail, please quote reference number [removed]

Regards,
Marianne M.
Rogers Online Customer Service
http://www.rogers.com

tldr of the spoiler: "We lock it so people won't steal copyrighted music to play as their ringtone"

I've reviewed the Rogers Terms of Use and have found no reference to customizing or altering firmware or modifying equipment (eg handsets), and additionally my previous Roger's Phone was fully able to receive any mp3, midi, or wav file and set it as a ringtone, so as far as I know they just developed a shady way of making you buy tracks from their service to use as ringtones.

Just so it's clear I don't intend to use any copyrighted material, I'd just like the freedom to deploy my own MIDI's and MP3s as customs (for instance, I have a High/Low siren mp3 that I apply as the ringtone from my Volunteer FD dispatch number).

Does anybody know of a way to circumvent the restriction or if there is replacement software for the VA76r available anywhere yet?

And additionally, if there happens to be anyone out there with a specialty in Canadian Copyright law could you comment on the theory in their email response to my inquiry, whether their concerns are valid or even legal?

Trillian

Rogers has started locking out the mp3 ringtone features of phones so they can make a few bucks charging you to download them. They didn't do this before, so that is the reason you could use your own ringtones on your old phone. The solution is to get your firmware flashed at a shady cell phone shop, which will void your phone's warranty, or get an unbranded phone.

Zeon

or check out Howard Forums, i can almost garuntee theres a way to load your own ringtones on that phone.

As a side note, its not only Rogers, i got a telus phone and theyre doing the same thing, as is bell. I think every major company in Canada is doing it now actually.

Ruckus

Zeon wrote: »

or check out Howard Forums, i can almost garuntee theres a way to load your own ringtones on that phone.

As a side note, its not only Rogers, i got a telus phone and theyre doing the same thing, as is bell. I think every major company in Canada is doing it now actually.

I already checked Howard Forums and modmymoto. Nothing at either yet.

onceling

They block numerous phone functions. Phones can tell you who's dialing by referring the phone number to the people in your phone book but I have to pay rogers $5 for the privilege of caller ID (which I don't need, I just want the phone to recognize numbers that are in the phone book already and tell me who's calling).

Pretty much everything my phone does on it's own, Rogers has blocked. I can't even get pictures off it without paying $5 per or hacking it / stripping the flash card out and plugging it into a reader. Ridiculous.

So like, some advice... I had a Motorola (not the one you have) and I just got a copy of the software for it, the CD was on sale on eBay or something and I could set up ring tones using that... but Rogers might have blocked that since. I gave up after I got a new sony phone last year.

Billy

Does anyone know why I can't load my phone with mp3's from my Mac?

Descendant X

OP, goto www.torrentz.com and search for Motorola Phone Tools. You should be able to get the software necessary to hack your phone from there. I've done it myself and put the Metal Gear Solid codec sound as my ringtone on my phone.

Good luck!

ravenspine

Descendant X wrote: »

OP, goto www.torrentz.com and search for Motorola Phone Tools. You should be able to get the software necessary to hack your phone from there. I've done it myself and put the Metal Gear Solid codec sound as my ringtone on my phone.

Good luck!

Are you on rogers? It's likely that using mp3 tones wasn't something that was locked on your phone if you're with a different provider. I can put mp3's on my phone, didn't need motorola phone tools to do though I own a copy; I can play the mp3's with the music player, but they don't show in the directory when selecting a ringtone. From what I've seen it's a rogers thing, haven't seen much about getting around it.

I also would like a fix.. I just got the va76r as a new work phone, had a sanyo scp-7500 before that which (at best) you could only pseudo-pc-connect with bitpim, and not well enough to get ringtones on it. (Just pictures off)

I don't like mp3's as ringtunes, but my own midi's would sure be nice. The codec sounds a pretty good one, I know some friend's that'd love that.