Ringtones no longer ringing the tills

　　The days of making easy money from ringtones short clips of music for mobile phones are over.

　　What has been a hugely profitable business is coming under pressure from a narrowing of the craze to a smaller group of mostly younger people， a shift in the nature of ringtones themselves， and growing competition among distributors.

　　In the UK and other European countries， where the fad first took hold， many of the people who once paid￡2 （$3.5） or more for a 10-second clip have given up buying ringtones， said Chris Jones， an analyst at Canalys， a technology industry consultancy： People were doing it because it was a new thing to do. That has worn off with a big part of the market. In the US， where the business is at a much earlier stage， the craze appears to have stalled even before it has reached a mass market. Only about one in 10 mobile subscribers is buying ringtones. That is the same proportion as a year ago， according to InfoSpace， a US ringtone company that claims 47 percent of the US market， though it adds that reliable statistics about the market are difficult to come by.

　　At the same time， the new band of distributors that sprang up to sell ringtones is finding the fat profits much harder to come by. Users are starting to switch away from the familiar polyphonic renditions of famous tunes to short clips of the original music known in the industry as truetones or realtones.

　　Most of the profits from these go straight to the record labels， not the middlemen who made a killing from earlier， cruder versions.

　　一、參考譯文

　　靠一小段手機(jī)音樂鈴聲輕松賺錢的日子已經(jīng)過去了。

　　這一迄今利潤豐厚的業(yè)務(wù)正面臨壓力，原因包括：對鈴聲狂熱的群體在縮小，目前多數(shù)是年紀(jì)比較小的人；鈴聲的性質(zhì)發(fā)生了變化；以及經(jīng)銷商之間的競爭日益加劇。

　　高科技行業(yè)咨詢公司Canalys分析師克里斯。瓊斯（Chris Jones）說，英國和其它歐洲國家是手機(jī)鈴聲熱潮的發(fā)源地，這里的許多年輕人此前曾為了一段10秒鐘的鈴聲花上2英鎊（合3.5美元）或更多錢，現(xiàn)在他們不再購買鈴聲?！叭藗儺?dāng)時(shí)這么做，是因?yàn)樗莻€新鮮事物。現(xiàn)在人們對此興趣逐漸淡薄，很大一塊市場隨之消失?！痹诿绹?，手機(jī)鈴聲業(yè)務(wù)還處在相當(dāng)初級的階段，鈴聲熱潮甚至在席卷大眾市場前就已停滯不前。僅有十分之一的手機(jī)用戶在購買音樂鈴聲。美國手機(jī)鈴聲公司InfoSpace稱，這一比例與一年前相同，盡管它補(bǔ)充指出，難以取得關(guān)于這一市場的可靠數(shù)據(jù)。InfoSpace據(jù)稱占據(jù)美國47%的鈴聲市場。

　　同時(shí)，出現(xiàn)一批新的鈴聲經(jīng)銷商，它們正逐漸發(fā)現(xiàn)，現(xiàn)在要實(shí)現(xiàn)高額利潤比以前難多了。用戶從熟悉的著名曲子的“和弦”演奏轉(zhuǎn)向原版的音樂短片斷，后者在業(yè)內(nèi)稱為“真實(shí)鈴聲”（truetone）或“原音鈴聲”（realtone）。

　　來自這些鈴聲的大部分利潤直接進(jìn)了唱片公司的口袋，而不是中間商。此前這些中間商依靠比較粗糙的鈴聲賺了一大筆錢。

　　二、重點(diǎn)詞匯

　　clip n.夾子，回形針，子彈夾

　　vt.夾住，剪短，修剪

　　profitableadj.有利可圖的

　　distributorn.發(fā)行人

　　analystn.分析家，分解者

　　consultancy n.顧問（工作）

　　subscriber n.訂戶，簽署者，捐獻(xiàn)者

　　proportionn.比例，均衡，面積，部分

　　vt.使成比例，使均衡，分?jǐn)?/p>

　　polyphonicadj.有許多聲音的，對位法的，復(fù)調(diào)的

　　rendition n.表演，演唱，翻譯