Ruckus Service ‘Will No Longer Be Provided’

Free, ad-supported online music service available to students at all US colleges shuts down.

Officially launched in September 2004 at Northern Illinois University, Ruckus was the first online music service focused exclusively on the college market. It was originally a subscription-based service, but dropped the monthly fee in November of 2006 in favor of a free, ad-supported business model.

Ruckus was always touted by the RIAA as evidence that legal alternatives to file-sharing existed. However, the service never really quite caught on because of the many restrictions placed on the music, such as no burning to CDs, and the fact that the music became inoperable after a period of time if the embedded license wasn’t renewed. It was surely due to these headaches for users that as of February 6th the service has ceased to exist.

“Unfortunately the Ruckus Service will no longer be provided,” now greets visitors to the site.

Some additional criticisms:

• Ruckus works only with Microsoft PlaysForSure, a program with an uncertain long-term future following the release of Microsoft’s new flagship Zune format, which is incompatible with PlaysForSure.[12]
• The service is not compatible with Apple Macintosh or Linux operating systems.
• The Ruckus library of 3 million songs, while substantial, is smaller than the industry-leading iTunes Store (with more than 6 million songs).
• Inconsistent naming convention for files (some file names are entirely capitalized, others include underscores rather than spaces).
• Inconsistent storage of track number (some files lack a track number property in the wma info tab)
• Inconsistent labeling of explicit and clean albums: Some explicit albums have the parental advisory icon next to their listing, while others only have the icon in the lower right corner of the album cover art. Additionally, some clean tracks (and even tracks without lyrics) are incorrectly marked as “explicit”.
• Some albums may be incomplete – certain album tracks may be unavailable due to cross-listings on the service.
• Inconsistent availability of explicit and clean albums; some albums have both types available, others only have one type available.
• Questionable marketing practices (see “Brody Ruckus”).

With the iPod/iTunes combo having become the choice of most music fans, it’s no surprise that a music service whose catalog is incompatible with Apple products would find itself in need of customers.

Either way, it’s satisfying to know that another of the services the RIAA has touted over the years has failed to take hold with consumers. It again proves that there’s a disparity between demand and what’s it willing to supply, and thus no wonder that it’s driving the music industry into the ground.

jared@zeropaid.com

Related Posts

1. What’s all the Ruckus? Service lets students (at Boston College) share music legally – and its free
2. Students abuse Ruckus: Users strips anti-piracy code with third-party software
3. Penn St. drops Napster for Ruckus music
4. Software Notebook: Microsoft Zune doesn’t do ‘PlaysForSure’
5. New Apple Service Off To Quick Start