Ruckus, the free online music sharing service that PSU has offered since 2007, abruptly went offline recently without telling anyone. Penn State didn’t share this news with students, and I found out yesterday while searching for ?uestlove’s compilation Babies Makin’ Babies.
Ruckus boasts 3.2 million songs that are legally licensed by artists and recording companies, and was provided to anyone with a PSU email address. I think the goal of the ad-supported program was to cut down on illegal filesharing by giving students an alternative way to get their top-40 & Z100 music fix. It was an okay program — providing that single you hear on the radio but certainly not a replacement for an interesting or eclectic music collection.
The Daily Collegian (PSU Daily Paper) reports that
Penn State students can no longer download free music from the Ruckus service, as the company unexpectedly shut down Friday.
Penn State spokesman Geoff Rushton said Sunday the university is currently looking into what occurred with the service.
“I don’t believe we were notified,” Rushton said. “Everybody’s pretty unsure of what’s happening at the moment.”
He said he found out the service had stopped after receiving an e-mail message from a member of the university community addressing the shutdown.
Since the stop in service occurred over the weekend, Rushton said university administration has not discussed what comes next.
“We don’t know what happened with Ruckus,” he said. “We’ll have to discuss that during the upcoming week.”
Rushton added the university has not yet decided if it will provide a replacement music service.
A notice posted on Ruckus’ Web site at about 5:30 p.m. Friday was brief in its explanation of the shutdown.
“Unfortunately the Ruckus service will no longer be provided. Thanks,” the statement read.
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My comment to digg re: this issue last week:
“RIP Ruckus — you kind of sucked, but I used you during undergrad anyway.”
I read an interesting article about how they buried themselves by migrating to ad-revenue rather than deals with universities. If I can find it, I’ll link to it.