A court in Chicago has given preliminary approval to settle 30 class-action lawsuits against companies that charged for ringtones, games and other content that end users thought were free. Each claimant will receive either $10 cash award or a $10 refund (via their carrier). Given the number of possible claimants, the companies in question may pay out as much as $63 million. Some of the defendants include Sony Pictures, MBlox, and Lavalife.

There are a variety of sources for downloadable premium ringtones. Premium ringtone means high quality, but often not free ringtone. Mobile phone users can go to various websites or buy them from their provider’s website that offer a variety of downloads, including polyphonic, monophonic, real tone, true tone or other formats of ring tones. You can download ringtones directly to your mobile phone if you have WAP access on your mobile or without WAP access, ringtones are sent to you as a text message.

There is no doubt you can make your cellphone exclusively unique using different sound effects. You can identify your caller by setting a certain song to play when they call. Premium ringtones besides being used for ring tones, are also used in SMS alert tones and as sound effects in mobile games.

Where to find premium ringtones? Do ringtone search engines exist? The answer is yes. Search’n’Find Ringtones is a search engine for mobile content with combined databases of the major players in mobile content industry covering 80% of the internet mobile content.