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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."
It looks like they are partnering with individual labels and producers to get a (likely meager) cut to the copyright holder so everything is kosher. Otherwise they're probably just banking on Sound Exchange and paying flat royalties for Sound Exchange to distribute later on. This is how most radio stations work (Pay to a big holding group that redistributes based on a variety of factors like album sales).
Also, it looks like the P2P part may only be a mechanism to locally cache and distribute content that they've licensed to reduce their overhead. The files are also Windows Media and "tethered" according to the article.
Paul
PS. I wrote the company to complain about the damn auto-playing music on the web site. This is no longer 1996!
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.
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