Fight Songs Ring In Big Business For One Manhattan Company

The ringtone market has taken its bumps and turns along the way, with aggregators falling by the wayside, but in the end, the one who owns the rights to the music will be the one that makes money. Turns out, popular college fight songs are no different.

Manhattan-based Carlin America, which owns the rights to fight songs for about 100 universities, is now making about $100,000 annually selling rights to fight songs playing on all sorts of gadgets, according to the AP. Carlin said one of the best-performing ones are from Alabama, University of Florida and Temple University. (No word on University of Oregon.)

Carlin gained rights to the songs after it acquired another publishing company in 1999, and while schools normally make money when their names and slogans are used in products for T-shirts, they don't typically profit from fight songs. In addition to ringtones, the company makes money licensing songs to other gadgets, such as door chimes, key chains and bottle openers. In the past, consumers may have found it difficult to find specific ringtones on the carrier's deck—especially such personalized ones as your college fight song. But now that there's more off-deck services and Web sites selling ringtones, that's less of a problem. If you aren't convinced, check out fighttones.com.