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Ruckus fails to quell University online music piracy
Published: Friday, May 16th, 2008
The introduction of the free, ad-supported music downloading service, Ruckus, in December 2006 has not eliminated the problem of illegal downloading on campus. This academic year alone, at least four undergraduate students received pre-litigation letters from the Recording Industry Association ...(back to the article)
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Ruckus just isn't being truthful. If their software isn't Mac-compatible, that's entirely their doing, not Apple's.
“The challenge is: How do you expand Ruckus to devices that are not compatible with Ruckus?” Um, that's why you hire developers. Write the damn code.
As multiple people mentioned last year when the Ruckus idea was proposed:
1) Ruckus isn't being forthright. Apple may not allow others to use its DRM, but Microsoft doesn't allow the use of its own DRM on Mac computers--it goes both ways. Ruckus chose to use Microsoft's DRM solution when they had other choices that would've worked on multiple OSs.
2) As users of the soon-to-be-defunct MSN Music service are finding out, renting DRM-ed music SUCKS because if the service goes out of business, you lose access to all the music you've collected through them.
Another '07 posted that Microsoft doesn't allow the use of its DRM on Mac computers.
Nothing could be farther from the truth. Apple did not release the code needed to integrate Windows Media DRM on onto the Intel based Mac. My company, which does video through Windows based DRM, faces the same issue, and frankly (for once) it is not Microsoft's fault.
The writer of this article shows amazing restraint! Everyone knows that the reason people don't use ruckus is the same reason they buy 5 tracks at itunes for every thousand songs they swap for free. Piracy is better! And the karma/politics are great too: support artists by buying tickets and t-shirts, DON'T support record companies who sue your friends. Go bittorrent, go limewire!
Ruckus blows. Straight up. It's unreliable, the song selection is awful, and the interface isn't pleasant. I'm not saying its right necessarily to download elsewhere, but when given the choice between complete albums of decent artists, and fighting to get encrypted tracks with the dumb interface of Ruckus, it makes sense to download a zip file, and try to support the artist through going to a concert instead. '99 has got the right idea. Major artists are now offering their albums online, (NIN, Radiohead, etc) either for free or for a price of our choosing. The record industry has got some changes to make, and reactionary litigation probably isn't the best option.
Ruckus can actually contribute to the piracy since all someone would have to do is get any of the numerous programs that convert protected .wma files to unprotected .mp3 files.
I would just like to point out that Microsoft's Zune is, contrary to what the article says, NOT compatible with Ruckus' DRM-drunken .wma's.
The Zune software fails to recognize the files at all.
Ruckus blows and that's why it's out of business.
Vote Republican!!!!