At one point, Apple was all set to let their customers create their own ringtones for the iPhone. Then the RIAA found out and put a stop to it, according to Daniel Dilger at Roughly Drafted on Friday.

The world of music copyrights is a complex one. "At stake are the complex copyright laws involving derivative works, performing rights, and reproduction rights. Apple’s iTunes breaks open a whole can of worms because it is changing the market for music and video," Mr. Dilger wrote.

While the RIAA won the right to not pay performers royalties for ringtones, it simultaneously maintained the right to collect the monies for those ringtones. In addition, they wanted to make darn sure that any ringtones generated on the iPhone had to pay that royalty. The result was that Apple had to delay its ringtone plans and come up with the scheme that Steve Jobs announced on September 5th.

"Apple negotiated a far lower price than any other ringtone distributor, but the labels are [still] worried that consumers might figure out how to create their own ringtones, just as they were able to figure out how to put music from CDs onto computers and MP3 players, a practice that got out of hand and resulted in more music being handed around for free than legally paid for," Mr. Dilger noted.

The result was a compromise. Apple never shipped a ringtone editor, for any already owned song, and the RIAA gets its fee (which isn’t paid to the performer by rule). The bottom line, however, is that Apple did the best it could to protect the interest of their customers and still comply with copyright law. However, the way they’re doing it will be very effective against the other mobile service operators, the method once again upsets the status quo, benefits Apple and its customers, and may ultimately win out over the mechanisms used by Apple’s competitors.

That’s probably the best Apple’s customers who are into ringtones can hope for right now.