In Bangladesh, it's now illegal to have the national anthem as a ringtone

A cell phone user.
(Image credit: Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)

If you're in Bangladesh and you have the national anthem as your ringtone, you better change it quick: On Monday, the country's Supreme Court banned the use of the song for any commercial purpose.

Upholding a 2010 high court ruling, the Supreme Court stated that "the national anthem can't be used as a business tool." "Amar Shonar Bangla," or "My Golden Bengal," is based on the first 10 lines of a 1905 song by Nobel Prize winner Rabindranath Tagore, and became the anthem in 1972. Bangladesh has one of the fastest growing telecom markets in the region, Reuters reports, with 124 million cell phone users — hopefully they can all find an appropriate ringtone that doesn't break the law.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.