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"Music is an important part of life for most college students, and we hope the variety of genres that Ruckus offers will allow our students to experience as much music as possible," said Bob Rafferty, Wittenberg's director of new media. "College is a time when students have traditionally been immersed in music, but with the proliferation of illegal online swapping, it has been hard for the university to encourage free music downloading until now."
In April, the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America called on college presidents to more aggressively police their networks and to shut down music pirates.
"Our hope is that by providing Ruckus at no cost to our students they will not be tempted to download music illegally," Rafferty said.
With Ruckus, students can download and share playlists of music and movies in a user-friendly download environment designed for college students. Users can recommend favorite tracks and look at other people's libraries free of charge. Wittenberg faculty, staff and alumni can also access Ruckus' services for a small monthly fee.
Ruckus, an advertiser-supported Web site, supplies legal, virus-free and spyware-free music and videos. While students can access the complete online music and video library, files are protected by digital rights management and licensed to each user for a limited amount of time. Albums, individual tracks and videos can be purchased through a partnership with Buy.com.
"We are very pleased to be able to offer this service to our students," said Joe Deck, Wittenberg's director of computing services. "Since this service is currently restricted to Windows-based computers, we hope that Ruckus will find a way to extend this to our students who are Mac users."
This service is now available at Ruckus.com. Users must sign up with their Wittenberg e-mail addresses to activate their accounts.
Written By: Ryan Maurer
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