One year after Washington University implemented the Ruckus music download service for students, administrators are hailing it as a big success, but not all students are happy.

Ruckus, a free music download service available to all college students with a library of three million songs, was brought to the University last Fall after a committee made of students from Student Union (SU) and Congress of the South 40 chose it over four other services.

According to Mary Zabriskie, special projects coordinator for campus life, around 5,700 Washington University students have signed up to use the Ruckus service, and these students have combined to download about 2.8 million songs.

With the Recording Industry Association of America continuing to crack down on music piracy at universities across the country, Zabriskie said that Ruckus’s extensive library of legally downloadable songs gives students an opportunity to enjoy their music within the law.

“The thing to keep in mind is the importance of recognizing the necessity of downloading legally and the serious ramifications for illegal downloads,” said Zabriskie. “That’s really what Ruckus was meant to do, to provide an opportunity for students to download music in a format that is free and legal.”

Zabriskie also mentioned that Ruckus comes at minimal cost to the University, and according to sophomore Jeff Nelson, SU senator and chair of the SU Technology Resources Committee, SU does not currently pay a subscription fee for Ruckus.

Many students use Ruckus on a regular basis and enjoy having the free service available to them, particularly as a way to explore new artists and music genres as well as recovering lost favorites.

“I like the program a lot because my hard drive got erased a little while ago and I knew exactly what songs to get, so I knew where to go, and I got them,” said senior Shweta Dambal. “It was very easily accessible.”

“It really opened my eyes in regards to checking out new bands that I hadn’t really heard of or old bands that I hadn’t really heard of and just making them accessible to people,” said junior Alexandra Jensen.

However, students also report several drawbacks to Ruckus.

Songs downloaded from Ruckus are encoded in copy-protected Windows Media format, preventing students from putting the songs on compact discs and some portable music players, including iPods.

Presently, the only portable music players compatible with Ruckus music files are those devices that meet Microsoft’s PlaysForSure certification.

“I was very annoyed to find that Ruckus wouldn’t transfer to my iPod or my iTunes, because I like to consolidate all my music,” said Jensen.

According to Nelson, the other major limitation of Ruckus is its incompatibility with Apple’s Mac OS X operating system. Although computers with Mac OS X are becoming a greater presence on campus, Ruckus does not have any plans to create a Mac-compatible version of the program.

“That’s a serious limitation because there’s a growing number of students on our campus who use Macintosh computers,” said Nelson. “And if we’re going to provide the service, I think it’s beneficial for students who use all types of computers to be able to use it.”

SU plans to stick with Ruckus for the immediate future in order to allow more time to gauge the quality and popularity of the service. Nelson said SU has looked into potential alternatives, including a version of Ruckus with social networking features that would require SU to pay a subscription fee.

Another alternative to Ruckus, Nelson said, is iTunes U, a service provided by Apple that allows institutions to post videos and audio files of classes, lectures and speakers on the iTunes Music Store for download by students.

While iTunes U would not provide free music to students, students would still be able to purchase songs from the music store’s six million-song database; iTunes U would be compatible with Windows operating systems and Mac OS X.

“With iTunes U we’re really just trying to see what exactly is possible with that service, how much it’s going to cost, how our students are going to use it and how they’re directly going to benefit from it,” said Nelson. “A lot of area universities are looking at iTunes U and what it can offer. We’re going to try to work with them to see how students can benefit most from it.”

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