Slashdot Mirror
University Tests Legal File Downloading System
philospher writes "Dorm students at Northern Illinois University are testing a legal file downloading service. It is made by Ruckus Network, and was developed by a group of MIT students. NIU pays 5$ a month per student, and the students can get music, movies, TV shows, local content and community features. Sounds a lot better than having the RIAA sending you a court summons."
I'd pay for a service like this. Not too expensive, and keeping me safe from RIAA/MPAA attacks.
Force students to pay whether they want the Uni to sell their souls to the RIAA or not.
Nothing new here. Move along.
I read the article... what makes this legal? not much in the way of details...
It was me, I did it, I moved your cheese
if its not illegal it's no fun.
screw it.
Cornell is giving away music downloads this year.
At least we're starting to see the Industry start using the technology to everyone's advantage instead of trying to quash it. Of course I'm in Canada and I'm pretty safe right now from the letters (mind you, I haven't downloaded an MP3 in a LONG time either). Of course with Morpheus's recent win in court, this sort of 'legal' P2P system may not catch on as well as hoped. Have to admit though, if I knew I could get high quality, legal MP3's I'd probably consider paying the $5/month.
How is this not illegal? If students are still downloading copyrighted content from each other... *scratches head*.... I don't get it.
And yes, I did RTFA, and the company website.
Posting the following:
"Bryan Ajuluchukwu, a freshman economics major, is one of more than 170 students living on the third floor of Grant Towers who is testing a new downloading service. The service, called Ruckus Network, allows for those students to download music and movies."
is the equiv of posting a target on your forehead for the MPAA and the RIAA to make an "example" out of you, especially for the elusive college market (which is the one they are always, always, always after..)
anime+manga together at last.. in real time.
Without knowing any further details, I'll bet that'll about sum it up. ;>
Let's think this over a bit.....The downloads are "tethered", as TFA states...
But let's consider something different.....
Can't find the population of NIU...But we'll use my school's numbers....Assuming a yearlong (12-month) contract....
$5 * ~40,000 students * 12 mos. = $2.4 million
Why would I want my tuition money (which, at this campus, only pays for more construction, adminstrative wages, yet can't cover enough for class TAs) to be wasted on RIAA/MPAA/AAA-approved media? The schools are always bitching about lack of funds, yet they can somehow afford this? Bullshit...If they (students), would like to pay out of pocket, be my guest. But don't waste my tution money on it.
My MythTV HowTo
Perhaps it had something to do with Michael "The Burner" Turner?
$5/month is nothing compared to what they're going to be paying for the bandwidth used up by all of the downloading.
Mooniacs for iOS and Android
...at www.ruckus.net.
The link in the article didn't seem to work.
I still can't find anything about what makes this legal, but the company claims it numerous times.
...so how much can you download?
"NIU pays $5 per student per month and is allowed unlimited access to the media for the testers. "
So, what exactly? $5/month for unlimited access to a student to download whatever.
Now THAT I could see take off.
...this is sure to get more kids to want to go off to college. "Hot damn!! I can get free music and movies if I go to college? Sign me up!!!"
Un-news
These students can download or stream music, television and movies (presumably fairly recent releases in a VOD arrangement) for $5 a month? And I'm paying $70 a month for my DSS service which has nothing on demand? And it's legal?
This begs a few observations:
There is no way this service will make it into the real world at this price.
or
This service is not legal.
or
My rectum problems are NOT due to a lack of fiber in my diet.
No offense, but WTF does that mean? Made and developed are essentially synonyms in this case. I often wonder why so many poorly worded submissions make it to the front page of Slashdot. Is it because putting anything in quotes seems to remove all responsibility from the editor? Or is it sheer ignorance. I understand that the English language is a nasty, irregular bastard of a language, but for the love of corn let's try to be professional. And if I see one more "Microsoft are developing" or "Google have updated" or any other such nonsense I'm going to have to beat the living shit out of an ignorant bastard. An entity, even if it is comprised of many individuals, should be treated as singular because it is. I'll stop with the common sense lesson, but if you want people to honestly pay attention to what's important, don't let your poor writing get in the way. Believe me, it's a distraction, and for even more close-minded individuals than myself it can be a complete turn-off. Thanks for your attention.
I am feeling fat and sassy
How many music downloaders has the RIAA actually brought to court? Not very many. Almost all of the RIAA's attacks against downloaders have been settled out of court. They're more of a publicity stunt than they are a legal tactic. Now that I think of it, I can't remember any case where the RIAA has brought a music downloader to trial (not that there weren't any, there may have been) almost all of their real court cases are against companies that produce filesharing software. The reason, I believe, for this is that there is a big legal distinction between downloading somebody else's content and making money from other people downloading that content. I'm pretty sure that if someone accused of downloading music actually proceeded to go into court that they could have a reasonable chance at getting off. We'll probably never see that though because for someone to do this they would have to have the money to front for a lawyer, not to mention the time to see the case through.
This sounds good but what format are the files in? If I can't get my videos in divx and my music in ogg then I'm sticking with "other" services (like bittorrent and allofmp3.com).
If I got a court summons or (more likely) a cease and desist letter from the RIAA I could put it in a nice frame and make a really cool wall hanging out of it.
"Ruckus is “tethered” so students can still download music and movies without officially owning, buying or burning downloads, said Marone"
/Sarcasm
Wow on demand cable without the abialty to record the shows. Thank you MPAA/RIAA for this generous outporing of stupid liscense fee media. Yes, these are the best times of our lives/
Insert sig here (slashdot) Insert cig here (Lewinsky)
Thanks for ruining the service we sprung $5 this month for. I guess my $5 is going to pay for a new server farm. Thanks again, slashdot!
I get the feeling though that unlike most "illegal" networks, this one has considerably less porn.
Obviously, it would be worthless to me.
Monday, August 23, 2004
Ruckus starts in Grant with new downloading tool for students
Network may expand to other residence halls if it is successful
Article by:
Michelle Gibbons - Staff Reporter
mgibbons@northernstar.info
Bryan Ajuluchukwu, a freshman economics major, is one of more than 170 students living on the third floor of Grant Towers who is testing a new downloading service. The service, called Ruckus Network, allows for those students to download music and movies.
Ajuluchukwu, who heard about Ruckus from his roommate, said he would definitely recommend the program to other students.
It was better than other programs because its legal, Ajuluchukwu said. This is a good idea for the university to do for the students so we have some entertainment.
Ruckus is a digital entertainment and downloading service that will provide music, movies, TV shows, local content and community features to students free of charge, said Joseph Marone, Ruckus account representative for NIU. NIU pays $5 per student per month and is allowed unlimited access to the media for the testers.
On Thursday, Ruckus will be available for testing to residents in the third through sixth floors of all Grant Towers, said Keith Kruchten, president of the Residence Hall Association.
Marone said NIU is very important to Ruckus development.
This is the first time weve opened this program up to a school. We want to make sure students enjoy it.
Still in the pilot testing process, the program is not only tested by students, but also developed and designed by graduate students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Marone said.
From Aug. 12 to Aug. 19, more than 20 NIU community advisers and Grant Towers staff tested Ruckus, and on Aug. 19, 170 students were added to the testing. By Aug. 26, a total of 700 NIU students will be linked to Ruckus.
On Sept. 1, about 2,500 students in all Grant Towers will have limited access to the network. The full model of Ruckus will be open to all Grant students in October, Kruchten said.
The network is located at www.betaruckus.net.
Ruckus is tethered so students can still download music and movies without officially owning, buying or burning downloads, said Marone.
He said students can share playlists and compare theirs with other students likes and dislikes.
Kruchten also said even though the program is limited, students have been very impressed with what has been available thus far.
© 2004 Northern Star. All Rights Reserved.
This has been going on for quite some time now....And no university/coporation has ever been hunted down by the RIAA/MPAA/AAA....
The universities (so far) have been more than willing to turn in a few students...The lawsuits serve only to scare people from downloading..Most are settled, and I can't think of a suit that has actually gone to court over it.
When you think about it, there really isn't a case...The U is like an ISP, and no ISP has been seriously targeted over downloading (only for not willing to turn over info to the courts)
My MythTV HowTo
Maybe I missed it in that poorly written article, but to make this legal one would assume that if a band/movie studio did not want their music/movie on "Ruckus Network", then they could simply say its not allowed. So in essence, for 5 dollars a month, students will be getting a potentially limited network of files.
I am really wondering if they will restrict particular files/titles/new movies or what. I wish there was a bit more info....
Ruckus has a deal with various companies to distribute the media (music/video). They list Windos media player as a program that works, but not itunes, so I'm guessing everything is DRMed. Ruckus's website also says that the media is downloaded from the school's network, so no wait.
thus, its most likely DRMed media that is useless outside of the schools network and prevents students from permanently keeping it on their computer after they leave college.
hey, I dont know much about how licensing keys and DRM stuff work, but it seems probable
The most popular downloads, which also account for the greatest bandwith used, are things like the latest DVD movies, theatre camera captures, popular albums. That's a simple fact, whether it's legal or not.
I can't believe Ruckus or any other small media company is ever going to be able to offer these kinds of downloads on their networks. I mean, is WB going to make a deal with them so that they can distribute movies at $5/month right at the same time as those movies are released in theatres?
So then, what kind of content *can* they distribute? Movies that came out two years ago, or Britney Spears' very first album, I guess. The same stuff that's on free to air TV.
In that case, there is still going to be alternative "illegal" networks for sharing the latest popular media, and I suspect that the illegal networks will stay much more popular.
Which means exactly? The movies I download off of Bittorrent aren't officially owned, bought, or burned either....
This download network, like many other legal, commercial networks that have struck deals with colleges, is paid for by the university, not by the students themselves. I never really understood this. I mean, I know most schools feel that it is in some way their responsibility to pay for their students entertainment, i.e. concerts and other performances, fairs, etc., but this seems like going a little over the edge. I mean, NIU has 25,000 students, so if they were to pay for this program for all of their students it would be 25,000 students times $5 times let's say 8 months of school (plus whatever they pay for the kids that are there in the summer) or $1,000,000. That's a lot of money to add onto whatever they budget for student entertainment functions.
This is a classic protection racket. You know, "Give me five dollars a month per student, and nobody gets sued." It doesn't matter if half the students never download anything, they still have to pay the $5/month. They should give the kids accounts and bill them, so that only those using the service have to pay.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
"...RUCKUS WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO ANYONE WITH RESPECT TO ANY DAMAGES, LOSS OR CLAIM WHATSOEVER IN CONNECTION WITH ACCESS TO OR USE OF THE CONTENTS OF THIS SITE. IN NO EVENT SHALL RUCKUS BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, INDIRECT, EXEMPLARY OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE, COPYING OR DISPLAY OF THE CONTENT..."
So where is the guarantee that this is in fact legal, and/or you won't get hunted down by the RIAA/MPAA? How is this not breaking copyright laws?
It sounds like a nice advertisement, but might be too good to be true. The adage, "There ain't such a thing as a free lunch.", rings true. They want personal information in return. Oh, and the privacy statement reads like adware/spyware.
If institutions are to adopt this for their College networks there has to be a guarantee in writing that I won't be sued for copyright infringement. Where is the guarantee I am legally licensing this for private use?
/^([Ss]ame [Bb]at (time, |channel.)){2}$/
I say congratulations to Ruckus and MIT for keeping it simple and coming up with an idea just might work. I just hope they can sort out the legal mumbo jumbo and get some quality titles on the network, not just left-over music that no one else will buy. ...and it's an awesome advertising venue for college bands playing local gigs
In a few months to a year we will have secure, encrypted, anonymous networks that are impossible to track. There are a few in development, and when they start reaching popularity one will pull ahead of the others, and it's game over for the RIAA/MPAA.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
2.4 mil is pocket change to a school of 40k students. when tuition clocks in at $20k per student per year (not figuring in room / board / activity fee / whatever), what's 60 bux per year? probably less than that even, as the summer / winter breaks are likely not covered.
On the other hand, if you have a huge P2P fest happening on campus, the fee the univ end up paying for simple outbound bandwidth will exceed that amount.
Anyway. On the other hand, I have never had downloaded anything from P2P *ever* (hard to believe in this day and age, probably, but iTunes radio serves me good enough), so would feel that charging absolutely everyone is quite unfair. Though, that said, for 5 dollars a month and unlimited downloads, I'd probably start getting hooked.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
I used to have an emusic account way back in the day, when they were unlimited. It was great to be able to download legally independent label music(the stuff worth listening to) where my money went to the artist. Of course any time you deal with a corporation, you run into problems. They double billed me for no reason and refused to refund my money(yeah, WTF). So I canceled and managed to get my music other ways. But I'm not scared the RIAA is going to come after me, I don't have their music. Because it's crap.
Tethered means it's on my computer. Well let's see:
1> I have a cable connection so downloading isn't a hassle
2> I don't tape any of my shows off tv to keep for good. I'd rather support them and do the legal thing, buy the series.
3> $10AU/month is a hell of a lot cheaper then $80AU/month
4> You can get whatever you want (provided it's available).
This can be a good deal for some people. It isn't for everyone, but I know I'd be tempted to subscribe (provided non-USians can subscribe and provided I could find out what it has available before hand).
The free uwgo.net has been doing high-speed LAN and campus file sharing for years. Legal... maybe not, but effective, yes.
Forced consumerism. Lovely.
File downloading services are not, in and of themselves, legal or illegal. They simply exist. What makes file downloading systems legal or illegal is what people do with them.
Much like Grokster and Kazaa were recently ruled to not violate the law, FTP, HTTP, Samba, AppleTalk, and other file transfer technologies are perfectly legal.
The title would be better stated as "University tests new copyright management system". That's what this system really is, an RIAA sanctioned music distribution system wrapped in DRM.
yeah, students are usually stone broke by month end! the 5$ subscription is seriously good. for a change, its not the RIAA creating the ruckus!
Sure, it's a step in the right direction, but the tether must be cut if the students are to take this more seriously. Is the entertainment industry just wanting money(cut the tether, they still get the money), or do they enjoy sick pleasure in suing people?
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
This is the problem with the current debate. It seems that "file downloading" has become "illegal" in general because of the political campaigns by the RIAA/MPAA to change the way we think. This is more than a little wrong. Just because the *AAs say it is wrong or illegal, does not make it so. These are the same people who claimed that Spiderman [I] did not make any money so they would not have to pay Stan Lee.
All file sharing systems, yes, including P2P, are capable of and indeed to share lots of legal files every day. There is no "system" for legal downloads. All systems can carry legal downloads.
This is a system for controlled sales of *AAs products. Warning. Lanugage, when used in the wrong way, can be hazardous to your freedom.
All data is speech. All speech is Free.
/ I heard a Ruckus.
..
* A ruckus, Sir? *
/ Yes a Ruckus
*... I didnt hear a Ruckus Sir.. Could you describe the nature of the Ruckus *
/ Dont get smart with me young man! .
that's true, also backwards it Sukur...
scott king
Why "tethered"? If I pay for a movie or music CD at a bricks-and-mortar store, I don't get it "tethered". I'm reminded of the Mark Twain quote when he was told that he could borrow a friend's books, but only read them in his library: "Sure, you can borrow my lawnmower, but for security reasons I cannot allow it to be used outside my lawn."
Does anyone else think this is exactly what Napster should've been turned into about 4-5 years ago? A service where users pay $5 a month to get whatever content is available (with the RIAA and MPAA behind it, this would be an enormous library). Too bad they couldn't at the time accept this possibility, because it doesn't milk as much money from people as their overpriced CDs did.
Of course this legal Napster would've been opt-in for individuals, not extortion fees from the universities.
If a system like this was ever supported by the MPAA/RIAA does anyone really think $5 a month would be the going rate here in the USA? More like $5 a song. The theft will never stop until the RIAA/MPAA stop alienating their customers. An amazingly large percentage of this country would actually tell you that the RIAA/MPAA are getting exactly what they deserve. The same group would then tell you that it's wrong to steal a candy bar. It has nothing to do with a misunderstanding or dis-association due to the internet. It has to do with people legitimizing the theft because they are angry and they know they have no other recourse in this country. File sharing has become a grass roots campaign to punish the music industry.
Regards,
~Joshua Norton
Music isn't free.
Period.
This is not "blanket extortion," and really, with the money that the music industry rakes in, five bucks a month is probably more akin to their anal cavities being violated than anyone else's -- Not Everyone Pirates Music, ya know.
$5/student is a good deal.
Let's put it in perspective.
TV is broadcast. Why shouldnt it be free?
They're sending out one signal.. What's one more box on the cable system? It's not costing them anything.
Yet I bet most of you (myself included) pay over $75 a month for this, in one form or another (mine is near $100, for DirecTV and a couple DirecTiVos).
But music.. $5 a month.. is extortion?
Reality check.... cmon....
Ok.. i'm currently an NIU student... in Grant Towers (tower B on the 8th Floor). And this is the first time that I heard of this. I dont remember EVER paying 5 dollars a month for anything related to "A Ruckus" or anything of that sort. So i could not tell you. But I will takea trip two floors down and try it out for you guys and give you some clue how it goes. But for now... WinMX and BT still work for me :)
Those kind of deals are at last starting to make sense. First there was not option for downloading legal digital content. Even if the technology was easily available to the corporations who could sell the stuff, they where refusing to sell it. My opinion was then "fuck them" I will download my stuff for free because they are fucking greedy bastards so me too I will be a greedy bastard.
Then they started offering some digital content at prices almost as ridiculous than the prices of the CD's that they sell on store but a least, you where able to select the songs that you want without buying the whole album. I was happy to see the progress but this wasn't good enough for me. "Fuck them, they can do better than that" was my opinion.
Now those deals are starting to make sense. The only problem is that I am not a student anymore and I don't live on a campus. I would be interested to pay for a deal that give me those kind of options.Because they are not offering that to me right now... Well... Fuck them.
Yahh, hiii haaaaa! -Major Kong, from Dr. Strangelove
And the DRM will be broken in ... 5 ... 4 ... 3 ...
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
What ever happened to "buying" a book. Or a CD. Or a single track from a CD that only you want?
This is like saying, pay us X per month, and then whenever you want to, you can download a book. Wouldn't you really rather just pay Y (which may be close to X) for the book, and then take it with and read ("play") it whenever/wherever you want?
Subscriptions are all about long-term area under the curve. Once you suck somebody into paying X every month (whether X be $5 for this service, or +$30 for cable video), those dollars really add up over the long term.
Unless you are a fairly regular user of the service, monthly subscriptions rarely make sense over purchasing and owning your own copy of the media and its content.
Oh yeah: The University may be "paying" the $5 subscription here, but of course they will pass it on to students. So service fees (or tuitions) rise.
The RIAA is still served, having passed the cost of their monopoly on to the end consumer. Previously accepted copyright practice is compromised in the process.
The iTunes Music Store is a poor example for several reasons:
as previously mentioned, there are no subscription fees for iTMS, so all the uni has done is agreed to provide the iTunes software on their servers (unless they also offer a certain amount of prepaid tracks per timeframe, in which case there is some cause for being upset)
there is plenty of non-RIAA music on iTunes, as independent labels are free to submit their tracks along with the big boys (use iTMS in conjunction with www.riaaradar.com to ensure that you don't support the big 5 labels)
the selection on iTMS is bound to be orders of magnitude better than what you'd find on this crippled P2P network, possibly even with music you'd actually want to listen to
like you don't already have a Windows install to play games and/or use Office...
"I like systems, their application excepted", George Sand (French)
The Piratebay, the largest bittorrent tracker in Sweden, recently got a threatening letter from the lawyers at Dreamworks.
:) (and it will be interesting to see dreamworks response on this).
Here is their response. Be aware of adult language, but I thought it was fun nevertheless
I think it goes like this... Get both the schools and the the students all worried and hyped up about being sued by RIAA/MPAA by aggresively suing both for all sorts of copyright stuff both real and imaginary. The schools get worried about the costs of students doing "something illegal" on thier networks. Doesn't matter if they are inoccent or not, litigation could at the very least tie up $$$$ for several years. Students get worried about "large fines and possible jail time". Now say to the schools we can give you access to an "approved" service for $X p/student p/month and this will go a long way to covering your arse "legally". This psudeo-extortion technique serves two purposes. First it makes the service owner a handsome profit. Second it "educates" tommorows adults that just about everything is owned by somebody and you gonna have to pay. When ownership of "ideas" is made perpetual (almost done, tick) and this notion seeps into the populations phyche (I can sell my "idea" and retire filthy rich!). Then progress in any potentially profitable area of investigation or development will stagnate. The corporate copyright holders do nothing except litigate to support inefficient distribution methods for thier own gain. The damage to society is that the money wasted/extroted could be used for something worthwhile (say a greater variety of artists or supply the African continent with clean drinking water).
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
So, given a typcial 8 months a year, for 4 years college scenario, the average student pays in $160. (or $240 for year rounders)
With $160 you could buy and own half a dozen cd's and half a dozen dvd's and variations thereof,
or download what is presumably a lot, with a stupid DRM attached without worrying about getting sued.
It wouldnt be that bad if they gave an opt-in choice, because I would assume that in 4 years time the DRM will be cracked.
When will companies learn that no matter what kind of copy-protection they add, if you get a digital copy of something, its only a matter of time to break the code?
The only times copy-protection remain unbroken are when the hackers are not motivated enough to break it because its something very lame and not worth the time and effort.
for providing them with a wonderfully decentralized, efficient distribution system that allows them to make there music better known to a broader public without having to invest in costly bandwidth.
If they'd only have a brain amongst them....
when did it become a school's responsibility to supply students with "music, movies, TV shows, local content and community features." They will be paying $125,000 a month that could go towards the education of their students. I would file criminal charges against them if I were a student there.
They'll be experimenting with over-age drinking...
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
I'm just waiting for the first press release with a slight typing error on the first letter.
How about we start a non-profit...
We all pay $3/month into a group fund to be used towards the cost of excellent legal counsel if the RIAA comes after one of us, or that can be used alternatively as a slush fund to buy off RIAA officials to secure statements in support of our lawful actions.
In other words, screw their mafia, let's start our own.
Of blankness, I know nothing.
Maybe I just don't "get" it. But I thought we send kids to college to learn stuff, not to download music and videos. If that's all they are going to do, they can stay home and work at 7-eleven and start paying rent.
If you're going to be in college/uni soon I would highly recommend that you don't view it as an opportunity to get laid, a way to hone your counterstrike skills, or a chance to vastly improve your music and dvd collection.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Double extortion, in fact. The RIAA gets money, the uni is free from lawsuits.
It may be possible to ask for a refund of certain portions of your student fees. Illinois does that for the fees funding various registered student organizations or services (e.g. student legal dept).
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
Hmm, yes, sounds like a good idea. Keeps you from getting in trouble. But that does not mean that it is a good thing, really...it fails to fix the problem we have, the problem that you CAN get in trouble for things that are not wrong. Don't get me wrong; downloading a copy of, say, Collateral without paying for it, having any intention of paying for it, for the sole reason that you do not want to pay for it, is wrong. But there is that pesky thing called fair use. Not everything students do on these networks is wrong.
Next thing you know, you'll be able to hook your computer to a group of computers connected to other groups of computers. And we shall name it the Intergroup of computers or Intergroup.
Their student body is only about 20,000. And most of those live off-campus; NIU is called a suitcase school because it's close enough to Chicago that a substantial number of students go back to their homes in the city and suburbs every weekend.
And, incidentally, NIU is one of the few computer science schools in the country that still teaches operating systems and data structures courses in mainframe assembly language. Think coding a binary tree in C++ is hard? - try doing it in IBM mainframe assembler!
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Legal file downloading services? You mean all this time downloading files was illegal? I'd better clear my browser's cache before the cops get here...
While I read through these, I realized that yes, the article is quite weak on details. As a student at Northern, I tried to found out as much as I could last year about it. Basically, the music can be streamed or downloaded in a wma form, which means unless you can to go to the trouble of piping it out then rerecording it, etc, the wmas aren't going anywhere but your own computer. For a price ( $1.00 per song last I heard) the student can purchase the song as an mp3. Videos and TV are strictly streaming, but still, on demand should be rather nice.
Next point: Bandwidth. Everything is hosted locally, and when Ruckus goes over the entire campus, all dorms should be wired for 100mb ethernet (currently several halls have DSL instead). This should be enough to play around with w/o slowing the networks to a halt.
Last point: There should be a rather robust collection of songs, as its the recording companies who will be selling it (most people know that's how it works). And we all know that the recording companies want money, in one way or another.
Sorry if any of this is inaccurate, I'm just a tired CS student who wants to go back to sleep.
If you don't pay mafia protection fees, then "bad things happen to you".
Lovely campus you've got here guvnah. You wouldn't want any of those lab computers to get broken now, would you?
Here come da fudge!
However, if it includes enough TV content to enable it to compete with the local cable with its $20-$45 per month costs, it will be a good setup for students.
You can bet that before long, someone will come up with a way to circumvent the DRM and that digital music content will proliferate.
...is this model going to fail before people stop trying to do it again?
Unlimited downloads of a limited catalog has failed in many incarnations. This WILL be a limited catalog. If studios get their noses out of joint, or decided they want a higher payment and don't get it, it will reduce in size.
One advantage to "illegal" P2P netowrks is, as others have mentioned, the current hot items. The other is more obscure works which are either too old to be "economical" to digitize or are from small labels which arean't part of the payment consortium. What makes P2P cool is the theory that you can find anything (though my experience is that you can't). This is explicitly limited by the contracts they can forge for $5/mo with the providers.
Oh, and just to be contrarian to my own view, If I could get in on this deal with unlimited video I could drop my cable subscription right now. Practically everything I watch is via PVR, so I don't need realtime television.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
The downloads are tethered to Windows Media Player (with all the DRM nastiness you might expect.) Music is downloaded to the local machine and can only be played on that machine AFAIK. Video is streamed to the desktop on demand.
For what it's worth, I tend to agree with the posters who think that this move was more to cover the university's collective ass than to bring a whiz-bang new service to the students. The fact that its basically extortion doesn't seem to bother any of the decision makers.
I do admit that I'm more than a little horked-off that I'm going to be forced to pay an RIAA-tax, for a service I have no use for, so that I can go to a public university.
When they went after individual downloaders, everyone bitched and moaned, "Don't blame individual downloaders; it's your outdated business model that's the problem."
Now they're trying out new business models. Not surprisingly, people are bitching and moaning again.
Oh, that evil, evil RIAA. Here they are, doing exactly what we said they should do. How dare they!
This one's got a big mouth!
Should's I cut off his thumbs?
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
As hard as it is to believe, some of us didn't really listen to music in college. Also, some people may have ethical or religious objection to giving blanket payments to a group of artists who would include rap, punk, or even (yikes) Barry Manilow.
Students can request any song in the 700,000 song library (or whatever the current downloadable music library size is) and if it isn't already on their on-campus server, the server will go get it elsewhere and store it for future downloads. The students can take as much music as they want, but they will NOT NOT NOT be able to transfer these off their computer by any means: mp3 player, burning to CD/DVD.
Let me say that again. They will NOT be able to copy, burn, transfer these files by any means. If they want to do this, they pay the $0.99 per song going rate to get the song in Windows Media format. From that point on, they can copy that song because they own it, and it will come with all the trappings of Windows Media DRM.
Every college campus gets a custom Ruckus website, where students can publish their playlists, and if you like it, you can then download the playlist from the Ruckus server.
Insofar as movies, the reason you can't get movies newer than 4 years old is because of all the deals in place with video rental places, movie theaters, HBO, etc. But, they point out a large segment for demand are cult classics which would be available for download.
I've met with Company management, and this is all from their presentation.
-evilplushtoy
Oh, wait, I get it.. the college pays $5/mo per student, each student is charged, oh like $50/mo..
It's "mandatory", not "manditory". (There are other spelling errors, but they are most likely typos.)
Also, you can put your name in your sig field.
I doubt it. When I went there in 1999 I was the only student I knew of on my floor with a computer. And there was only dial-up.
Would that be a service for downloading files of stuff to do with law? I briefly thought it meant "a service for downloading files which is legal", but quickly realized that that description covers every downloading service, so that can't be right.
The school is doing this to protect it's self
"itself".
Jesus Christ.
Actually, it's sukcur, not sukur
As opposed to what? An "illegal" download system? Is there such a thing? The last time I checked it's what you use it for, not the system that is potentially illegal.
...five dollars more expensive than the competition.
Its the RIAA and CopyRight Infringers. the artists see very little, and the RIAA is just pissed that now they have a few million less coming in with CD Sales.
Most artists (except metallica - YUCK) could care less. they make their money from concerts and adverts.
"In a world without walls and fences, who needs Windows and Gates?"
Universities have long been centers of knowledge and information in our society, and they're linked tightly to economic development.
What happens when a university decides to expand its role in society and start selling access to their "content"? Yeah, academia is supposed to be all about the free interchange of ideas and all that. But really, universities already do sell access to their assets in the form of tuition and other fees.
What I'm thinking is what would happen if a university started acting as a distributor of copyrighted works not only to its students, but also to the surrounding community. You move to a college town, the first thing you do is log onto the local university's web site and sign up for music, movies, and TV content on demand for $x a month.
Maybe that sounds far-fetched, but if the service is really all that, it might be worthwhile for community members to just always sign up for 3 credits of enology and onology.
My guess is that this is a service that universities will offer mostly just to foster a healthy sense of respect for intellectual property and to cover their own and their students' asses. There's probably not much incentive for them to get into the for-profit content-distribution business. But it does help clarify a line that academic centers need to be careful about crossing.
What kind of content do they have? What kind of movies and music?
i stand corrected.
scott king