Van Halen and the Dave Matthews Band—two high-profile holdouts—are now selling ringtones of their music, and both are giving AT&T (NYSE: T) some exclusive pieces of content, Reuters reports. The DMB deal was announced by AT&T a month ago; the Van Halen news came out several weeks back. The meat of the new story comes from Mark Nagel, AT&T’s head of music and personalization services, who says that the operator wants more exclusive deals with artists in the coming months for both ringtones and full-track downloads. Nagel also says that in some cases AT&T is in a better position than its music partners, eMusic and Napster, (NSDQ: NAPS) to ask for exclusives: “We end up talking to labels a lot together… In some cases we have a lot bigger monetary relationship with the labels than even some of the digital distributors, so we’re often walking arm in arm in those discussions.”

Verizon (NYSE: VZ) Wireless earlier this year announced exclusive deals for content from AC/DC, Bob Marley and Led Zeppelin, apparently throwing down a gauntlet to which AT&T feels compelled to respond. It’s hard to see the benefit of these deals for the acts, since it makes their music available to only those fans which use the relevant operator for their mobile service—a point underlined by an exec from Rhino, which manages the Van Halen catalog: ”They have all kinds of fans using all types of operators… We just thought it made the most sense, with the band being on the road, to work with all of our partners.” You also have to wonder if it’s worthwhile for the operators to shell out the money needed to secure exclusive deals, since only the hardest of an act’s hardcore fans are likely to churn to a new operator just to get some mobile content.

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