Students across the country who are illegally downloading music onto their computers have come under considerable fire from the recording industry during recent years.
Ruckus Network, a relatively new music downloading service for students, hopes to change that.
Since January, Ruckus has offered free – and legal – music downloads of more than 2.5 million files exclusively to college students, a feature it offers through partnerships and agreements with most major record labels, representatives said.
“To be honest, illegal downloading remains a problem on college campuses,” said Andrew Soucy, a representative with Ruckus. The Recording Industry Association of America “recognizes that, and Ruckus recognizes that. Ruckus is still trying to curb it.”
The University is no exception to the hostile environment for music downloaders. Employees at the ResNet office have said that the department shuts down as many as two dozen students’ Internet access each week for having illegally acquired material stored on their computers. The shutdown comes by request from the RIAA, which then notifies the University network.
Early last week, the RIAA escalated its crackdown even more by sending out a total of 400 letters to students at 13 universities, including Arizona State University and the University of Southern California, threatening to file suit against the culprits if they do not respond within 20 days.
Though its methods may be vastly different from the RIAA’s, Ruckus has the same ultimate goal of the record company, Director of Corporate Development Chris Lawson wrote in an e-mail.
“As more and more students in the U.S. begin using Ruckus, the number of threatening letters from the RIAA will hopefully drop,” Lawson said. “We know students use Ruckus, the legal alternative, when given the option. Now we just need to spread the word to all students.”
Students approached for this story had never heard of Ruckus, but would consider using the site upon looking into it. As for the backlash from prior illegal downloading, opinions varied.
University freshman Erik Miller, who said he seldom downloads music from anywhere, said he felt the issue was slightly overblown in many cases.
“I honestly don’t think (the RIAA) should be going after kids,” Miller said. “But I understand why they’re doing it. I’ve heard of students who literally have thousands of songs.”
Brett Nickles, who said he has downloaded files from LimeWire – the target of many RIAA efforts – doesn’t worry about the implications of using the service, he said. Having never been punished himself, Nickles said he tries to avoid downloading excessively as others have.
“I don’t download here as much as I do at home,” he said.
Though skeptical of the newer service, some students said they would look into Ruckus upon hearing about it.
“If my Internet won’t get shut down and I don’t get sued, then yeah, I’ll use it,” University freshman TJ Robertson said.
Record labels have agreed to work with Ruckus because of their aim to cater exclusively to college students, Lawson said. Students need a valid “.edu” e-mail address to be able to use Ruckus to download music, but others at a university must pay an $8.99 fee to use it, Lawson said. The company is able to offer free file downloads partly from this revenue. The company also receives significant advertising revenue from the site, he said.
Music downloaded from Ruckus is played exclusively through the Ruckus Player, which is downloaded from the Ruckus Web site and does not run on computers running the Macintosh operating system. In addition, Ruckus music files are only playable on Playsforsure-compatible MP3 players, which does not include iPods.
But even if downloading directly from Ruckus is legal, copying or sharing the files from there is still grounds for Internet shutdown or prosecution from the RIAA.
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