Ruckus shuts down, citing insufficient ad revenue

Before Friday, the service provided subscribers with an unlimited number of free music downloads. Now, the company’s website merely states, “Unfortunately the Ruckus service will no longer be provided.”

Free access to the service was made available to Princeton students on Dec. 13, 2006, after an agreement was reached between Ruckus and the University.

The project was a result of student initiative, University spokeswoman Cass Cliatt ’96 said in a December 2006 interview with The Daily Princetonian, noting that the administration’s “principal role was to be a signatory on behalf of the student group.”

Several students said the end of Ruckus is of little significance, as music from the site could not be transferred to iPods, CDs or Zunes. Additionally, the service was not compatible with Macs, which as of 2008 were owned by about 40 percent of students on campus, according to Steven Sather, the associate chief information officer and director at the Office of Information Technology.

“I was never able to make use of the program to begin with, so I’m not affected by it in any way,” Nicole Phan ’12, a Mac owner, said.

Then-USG president-elect Rob Biederman ’08 told The Daily Princetonian in December 2006 that he expected the service to “completely alleviate” music piracy on campus.

Music files from Ruckus contained a form of piracy prevention known as Digital Rights Management (DRM), which prevents the files from being transferred to portable music devices. There are several illegal programs available online, however, such as FairUse4WM, which allow users to strip off this DRM protection so that they can transfer music onto their devices.

The introduction of the Ruckus service failed to eliminate illegal music use, said a student who spoke on condition of anonymity. “The only way I use [Ruckus] is to transfer music to iTunes [illegally],” she added, “so it wouldn’t be good if I didn’t have that program.” She noted that she was “very upset” that the service will no longer be available.

Even for those who used Ruckus legally, though, the elimination of the service is disappointing.

“It’s terrible!” Maya Reid ’12 said of Ruckus’ demise, adding that Ruckus was the sole source of all the music she has downloaded since coming to campus. She explained that she even dealt with the problem of not being able to transfer music to an electronic device by purchasing wireless headphones: With her Bluetooth-enabled headphones, Reid was able to listen to music without being near her computer.

“It was such a great service, and it was a reason why it was better to have a PC over a Mac, and there aren’t very many reasons,” Reid said.

Now music listeners like Reid have run out of places to download free music.

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“I’m scared to download illegally,” Reid said, explaining that she does not want to expose herself to possible legal prosecution while on campus. Now that Ruckus is unavailable, she said, “I’ll just wait until I get home to download music.”