A Ring Tone of a Moped Outsells a Hit Song:

The story of the song is a tale of Internet collaboration over time and across international borders among people who have never met. About five years after Mr. Malmedahl sent an e-mail message containing his moped MP3 recording to friends, it reached another Swede, Erik Wernquist. Mr. Wernquist used the noise as a sound track to a cartoon that featured a blue frog with a goofy grin, motorcycle helmet and leather jacket. Nearly two years later, the sound was picked up by a company specializing in ring tones, Jambal, and became their most popular download, known as the “crazy frog” ring tone. This year, two German club disc jockeys, Reinhard Raith and Wolfgang Boss, mixed the noise with “Axel F,” the instrumental theme from the 1984 Eddie Murphy film “Beverly Hills Cop.” They released it last week as a CD single.