UD students can raise a Ruckus

9:12 a.m., March 16, 2006--The University of Delaware has entered into an agreement with Ruckus, a digital entertainment network designed specifically for college students. Thanks to the licensing agreements Ruckus has negotiated with a variety of media companies, UD undergraduate and graduate students will have free, legal access to more than 1.5 million songs and inexpensive legal access to a variety of popular television shows and movies.

Ruckus is the first college-only service that blends social networking features with a massive music, movie and television library. In addition to the free, legal music downloads available from Ruckus, on-campus UD students can, for a small fee, get access to hundreds of Hollywood movies and hit TV shows like Lost and Desperate Housewives.

Through Ruckus, all UD students with Windows computers can legally share music, movies and television programs; create playlists; send personal media recommendations to friends and neighbors; and browse classmates' profiles and media libraries.

“Through this alternative to illegal file-sharing, our students can enjoy an innovative and legal way to download and share their music, movies and television with friends and classmates,” Susan Foster, vice president for information technologies, said. “We're happy to be able to provide our student body free access to the Ruckus music service.”

Foster added that Ruckus is one of several legal options for downloading music and other media available to University students. “Providing this service is an important part of the University's mission to help students learn that there are many legal options available for downloading and sharing music and other media,” she said.

"After working in Judicial Affairs and seeing the number of students who illegally download music, I'm pleased to see that UD is promoting a free, legal music downloading system," grad student Adam Smeets said, after previewing the service. "I love the Ruckus system."

Other UD students who previewed Ruckus have been equally enthusiastic.

“It's free-of course students like it,” Sal Giglia, AS '07, said.

"I have been having a good time updating my computer's music library," grad student Amanda House said. "It's free and legal, so you really can't go wrong."

"It's really fast: I downloaded a whole album by the Stray Cats in about five seconds," Giglia said. He indicated that he had noticed some gaps, due to licensing issues, in the music Ruckus makes available, "but they have a ton of cool stuff-including a lot of comedy recordings and older stuff like Patsy Cline and Jerry Reed."

Smeets agreed that the Ruckus music collection is quite extensive. “They have an amazing Indie Rock and Dance remix collection that I never anticipated being available,” he said.

House was able to find an obscure skit from a comedy album. "That was the 'coolest' track I've found so far," she said.

The students also said they were surprised at how quickly new music appeared on the Ruckus service. “Each week Ruckus makes the newest releases available,” Smeets said.

Giglia said that UD students will enjoy sharing their Ruckus playlists with each other. “Ruckus lets you share a playlist with other students on the same local network or publish it to a wider audience,” he said.

Smeets said that he enjoyed “the 'Spotlight Playlists' section where students from across the United States post their favorite music lists and you can download the entire list at once.”

Giglia predicts that a lot of students will take advantage of the Ruckus movie and TV download service, noting that “$15 per semester is pretty cheap for unlimited downloads!”

Fast Facts About Ruckus

Ruckus only works on Windows XP and Windows 2000 computers.
The Ruckus music service is available to all UD students at no charge during the fall semester, Winter Session, and spring semester.
The Ruckus movie service is available for $15 per semester for unlimited downloads.
The Ruckus movie service is available on UD's Newark campus. It is also available to off-campus broadband users via UD's VPN service.
You do not own the media that you download from Ruckus.
Your use of the Ruckus service grants you a temporary license to use the media on your computer. Music licenses are renewable every 30 days while you are a UD student. Movie and TV shows are licensed to you for five days.
Ruckus-To-Go ($20 per semester) allows you to download your Ruckus music collection to a supported portable music player. (Go to [www.udel.edu/legaltunes/ruckus/index.html#ruckus_to_go] for a list of supported players.)
To acquire a permanent license for a song, you can purchase a song for 79 to 99 cents (each) from Ruckus.
Movies and TV shows downloaded from Ruckus will remove themselves from your computer after five days.
Ruckus will not work with Apple Macintosh or iPod hardware.

Smeets agreed, saying, “Students will definitely sign up for the movie service. Having the opportunity to download movies will be amazing, particularly if you consider how much money you'd save compared to the prices at Blockbuster or another movie rental company. I'll sign-up in a heartbeat!”

University President David Roselle notes that Ruckus takes advantage of “a fortunate intersection of three important facets of University life”--UD's high-speed network, UD's commitment to incorporating technology into student life and UD's commitment to educating students about using technology responsibly.

“In particular, UD has been a leader in educational programs aimed at impressing upon the campus community the need for fair use of entertainment available on the web. This agreement with Ruckus builds on that effort by providing new access to a wealth of legal entertainment options for our students,” he said.

For More Information

Legal Music and Media at UD: [http://www.udel.edu/legaltunes]

More Information about Ruckus: [http://www.udel.edu/legaltunes/ruckus]

More Information about Digital Copyright issues at UD: [http://www.udel.edu/codeoftheweb/resources/copyright.html]

UD news release about Ruckus: [http://www.udel.edu/PR/NewsReleases/2006/mar/3-16-06/ruckus.html]

Article by Richard Gordon

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