Ruckus Network offers "free" stipulation-laced tunes to college students

Some folks just don't know when to quit, and apparently, Ruckus Network falls clearly into that category of beings. Looking past the brutal failure at American University and the growing data proving that stipulation-laced music simply doesn't fit in at college campuses across the nation, Ruckus is giving this idea one more go, and this time, it's 100-percent kinda-sorta gratis. While it's not too unusual to hear of indie / unsigned bands being distributed for free, this new deal supposedly offers up "major label bands" without charge to students holding an email address that ends in ".edu." The service will be completely ad-supported, and doesn't require any official "vow of support" from a university itself, and for alumni / faculty registering with their educational email, a $8.95 per month charge will purportedly be levied. The catch, however, is that the "free music" can only be played back on the person's PC, and transferring it to a DAP -- which must support DRM-WMA, by the way -- will run students $4.99 per month. Aside from this music rental fee, the service completely shuns Mac, iPod, and Zune owners, leaving us to wonder just how effective the service could be if the terms were even remotely attractive from the start. Regardless, the rigid service is available now for the few folks interested, but from the looks of things, we doubt it'll reverse the fortunes of Ruckus Network.

[Nicholas Barry @ Jan 22nd 2007 2:00PM]

There's a program named Tunebite, which re-records the songs at a faster rate, disabling the DRM code, in turn making the song unprotected. Most people have to pay for Tunebite, but that's also easy to get around with a good ol' fashioned key generator.

What's really cool: after downloading from Ruckus (instead of a site like Lime Wire), all the tags remain intact, organizing the library all by its lonesome. Then iTunes downloads album art for it--making everything pretty.

Of course, I don't agree with any of this, I'm just posting it for fun and games. Don't steal music.

[John @ Jan 22nd 2007 2:04PM]

This has been going on elsewhere, too. CTrax has a service almost identical, and it works fairly well. It's basically an iTunes lookalike, with most of the same artists available. As far as DRM, it not only works solely on your computer, but it also phones home every 30 days to make sure you still have that .edu address. What no one has pointed out yet, though, is that FairUse4WM would (hypothetically) work wonders for iPod/Zune compatibility. But that's dubiously legal.

[Chris K. @ Jan 22nd 2007 2:05PM]

This service is quite good for free. They have pretty much everything I search for from indie to mainstream music. And the DRM tied to the files is not hard to overcome. Just requires a bit of time and effort.

[blahblah @ Jan 22nd 2007 2:06PM]

Who listens to music anymore anyway? Certainly not the mass-produced kind. It's not made for the public anymore anyway. It's purely a cynical, corporate profit-maker now and has long lost its value as a meaningful mode of expression of humanity.

[wow. @ Jan 22nd 2007 4:52PM]

Kinda like people posting on the internet.

[tekdroid @ Jan 22nd 2007 2:07PM]

I wish I had stipulation-laced shoes.

Some advice for Ruckus: quit while you're ahead. This will never fly.

[Rutgerskid @ Jan 22nd 2007 2:12PM]

We have this at Rutgers University. No one uses it!! Why would we when we have Direct Connect and free access to 100's of TB's of music/games/movies...?

[Bizzle @ Jan 22nd 2007 2:22PM]

Also from RU, use it sometimes just because its free, and anything I like I use Tunebite to un-DRM.

[CowboyGA @ Jan 22nd 2007 2:24PM]

Or you can just use LimeWire and forgo the tags. It may not sort the music as well in some programs, but who really uses them?

[Russ @ Jan 22nd 2007 2:32PM]

i used to work for ruckus, and got out over a year ago,.. with a lot of other people. but i got a severance, so i guess i'm obligated to speak good of it.. in which case... the graphics are sweet... and yeah.. it's easily stripped.

[Big John @ Jan 22nd 2007 2:42PM]

From Michigan State University here. Honestly, there are only a few artists that I haven't found on this service. The only thing that irks me is that it doesn't seem to be Mac-compatible, so I'll be stuck running it in Parrallels once I make the switch.

Oh, and the DRM is flimsy at best. Fair use FTW.

[tweak @ Jan 22nd 2007 3:32PM]

Ruckus is great in combination with FairUse4WM...Been using it for months now :-x

[Kevin @ Jan 22nd 2007 4:04PM]

I have been using this at my school since September, and it works fine for being free. It is not as good as Napster (which I had free last school year). It has very poor searching features, but has the same music as Napster.

[adkos @ Jan 22nd 2007 4:26PM]

students at UNC have been doing this for a while... but along with drm strippers.

[Greg @ Jan 22nd 2007 4:43PM]

The Mac will never get support for any Windows Media DRM service. Windows Media DRM is integrated tightly into Windows and I'm sure Apple will never open up enough of the MacOS to tie MSDRM into it, on top of the substantial investment it would require.

Hope for Windows Media DRM on the Mac went out the window the same day Microsoft discontinued WMP 9 Player for Mac and Flip4Mac took over. As far as I can tell Flip4Mac has no plans to support MS-DRM on the Mac and even if they did they would probably charge a substancial fee for such capabilities.

My point is, I wish everybody would not say anything about a music service and a Mac. The only way Ruckus or any other service (except maybe RealNetworks) is going to touch the Mac is if Apple licenses FairPlay w/ subscription expiration capabilities. And although H.E. double has frozen over before with Intel... on FairPlay... I don't forsee such happening. The only reason any MSDRM based services can't support the Mac is because Apple won't license FairPlay to them. It is Apple's fault because it's Apple's perfect little platform.

I own an iMac Intel Core 2 Duo and use BootCamp. I love Apple's operating system & computers, but I hate their iTunes/iPod crap and Steve's policies relating there-in. Until they learn to PlayFair with FairPlay, I'm not touching an iPod. I use Sony Connect (PSP)and Napster (Palm, Zen Xtra) for purchases and Ctrax/Ruckus for subscription.

And yes Tunebite works wonders!!! :-)

[BS @ Jan 22nd 2007 5:25PM]

I've been using this through my university for almost a year now. It may not be as good as downloading all of the pirated music we all used to (and some still do) but it is free AND legal so that's how I get most of the music I listen to while I work. The network as most of the songs I want, not quite as good as iTunes. I have also found that a lot of albums that only have 1 or 2 good songs on them will have those songs removed (or set to unavailable for free download)... I hope they make this work financially because I really like getting free music!

[Brian @ Jan 22nd 2007 5:42PM]

wow. said: "Kinda like people posting on the internet."

Indeed. You've just proven your point. Idiot.

[Mark @ Jan 22nd 2007 6:07PM]

I used it a ton, until fairuse4wm stopped working for me, and now I haven't been on in months.

[paul34 @ Jan 22nd 2007 9:19PM]

orrrr.... I could use my l33t torrent skills, and then attend my bands' shows and concerts so that they, instead of the record companies which do nothing but terrorize America, hijack our Congress, and tie up our judicial system (preventing it from pursuing more important things like missing children, child molestors, etc).

Bing bing. I know what I'll still be doing. Woohoo!

[kev @ Jan 23rd 2007 7:32AM]

Too bad DRM doesn't affect me at all. Thank you Creative Audigy2 ZS!

[Brad @ Jan 23rd 2007 10:48PM]

We have this at Indiana University, our Student Foundation pays for it...I like it a lot. My FairUse works on it, and after showing all my friends how to use it, they use it too...definitely makes downloading much easier for everyone. I love it.