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Ruckus Closes Down

Posted by timothy on from the long-overdue dept.

An anonymous reader writes "According to TechCrunch, Ruckus, the ad-supported music service targeted at college students, has closed down for good. Ruckus was notable for its poorly-designed client software and .wma-only DRM-laden catalog of 3,000,000 tracks, somewhat less than half the size of the iTunes catalog."

27 of 125 comments (clear)

  1. Good riddance. by vishbar · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Ruckus plus FairUse4WM made for a good time. The only reason I used it was to download the songs, strip the DRM, and put 'em on my iPod as beautiful, DRM-free mp3s. The client itself was horrible. I won't be missing it one bit.

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  2. Uhhhh.....free? by martin_henry · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Ruckus was notable for its poorly-designed client software and .wma-only DRM-laden catalog of 3,000,000 tracks, somewhat less than half the size of the iTunes catalog.

    I think it was far more notable for that fact that it gave away almost half the size of the itunes catalog for free.

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    1. Re:Uhhhh.....free? by Jurily · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I think it was far more notable for that fact that it gave away almost half the size of the itunes catalog for free.

      Now that they're closing down, how long can the customers use those tracks?

    2. Re:Uhhhh.....free? by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And those DRM-laden tracks are going to keep working? Keep in mind that removing the DRM on a track -- even if you legally purchased it -- is illegal in the United States and other countries that have laws similar to the DMCA. It's also possible to to interpret the law to mean that once the DRM stops working, the tracks you illegally removed the DRM from are also considered pirated material.

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    3. Re:Uhhhh.....free? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      iTunes is phasing out all DRM on music. It's still present on movies (rentals and purchases), but their DRM system doesn't depend on a polling a central server once a computer is authorized. If Apple shut down their DRM servers, the DRM files would still be 100% usable until you replace/reformat your computer.

    4. Re:Uhhhh.....free? by Myopic · · Score: 2, Informative

      Yes, we all hate the DMCA, but I don't think a court has ruled on whether it is illegal to take DRM off of a legally purchased file. Remember, the law is what the courts say it is, not what the legislatures say it is.

  3. Never used it. But... by jellomizer · · Score: 3, Insightful

    A bad business model usually causes a company to fail, even more then the quality of their product. The WMA DRM is really not a big deal. Perhaps the quality of their software my be a larger factor. But I would say having a smaller amount of tracks available then iTunes, and that it was Targeted toward College students a group who is more willing to pirate music of their colleges high speed internet, with a since of entitlement as they are paying so much for college and everyone is telling them that they will be the leaders of tomorrow, and probably the only sector which would have real issues of WMA,DRM,and Poor quality software.

     

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    1. Re:Never used it. But... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Informative

      I strongly suspect that WMA was a really big deal. Remember WMA DRM = Doesn't work on iPods. Based on the usual market share numbers, that is pretty much a dealbreaker for over half the population(and college students are probably more likely than the population at large to be using iPods).

    2. Re:Never used it. But... by Mateo_LeFou · · Score: 5, Funny

      "Remember WMA DRM = Doesn't work on iPods."

      lol, everyone uses Zunes, who cares about iPod. Also everyone uses Internet Explorer. And Windows.

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    3. Re:Never used it. But... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'm no fan of DRM period(and, running Linux, it isn't as though either DRM system supported me). In this case, though, Ruckus had a (terrible) client even though Windows supports WMA DRM by default, so that was no advantage.

    4. Re:Never used it. But... by UnknowingFool · · Score: 2, Informative

      But then again, WMA DRM = Works in Windows PCs without installing additional software

      You still have to install a newer version of Windows Media Player than the default. On XP it comes with WMP 6.4 which doesn't have a lot of functionality. WMA DRM works on a lot of different PMPs; however, it doesn't work equally well on all of them or as well as FairPlay works with iPod. That's the main reason the iPod is more popular; it just works.

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    5. Re:Never used it. But... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      "Remember WMA DRM = Doesn't work on iPods."

      lol, everyone uses Zunes, who cares about iPod. Also everyone uses Internet Explorer. And Windows.

      It didn't work on Zunes either

  4. Dominated by streaming services by vigmeister · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I used Ruckus when it came out as my music provider, but moved to streaming music providers like deezer when they popped up. To be blunt, Ruckus had nothing more to offer than these services except the joys of installing a poorly written piece of software on your computer. I, for one, am not likely to miss it.

    Cheers!

    --
    Atheist: Buddhist in a Prius
  5. Another music service bites the dust by Dekortage · · Score: 3, Insightful

    FTA:

    music that has not passed its âoerenew dateâ still works... music that has expired will no longer work because the DRM licensing server has apparently shut down.

    Quick, listen to your music before it expires!

    Also, the article suggests that Total Music (which recently acquired Ruckus, and was a joint venture between Sony and UM) still has some life in it, but this article (on the same site!) says otherwise and quotes the blog of a VP there. I guess these record labels are having a hard time with this stuff...

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  6. First time I ever heard of it by rolfwind · · Score: 2, Informative

    If it was aimed at college students, they did a poor job of advertising it (using Pandora here).

    1. Re:First time I ever heard of it by workman161 · · Score: 2, Funny

      The way they advertised it here on my campus, you'd think you'd get expelled by just mentioning the words "sharing". Maybe even "fair use".

    2. Re:First time I ever heard of it by FlyingBishop · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I wouldn't know about it either, except my brother's university had signed a deal so everyone was required to use Ruckus. So I think it was less targeted at individual users, and more targeted at universities looking for a reasonable way to let their students have music, but still be able to enforce a strict policy on filesharing.

      And looked at it that way, it's kind of like a less sketchy version of the filesharing tax.

  7. My uni apparently didn't get the memo by rfunches · · Score: 3, Interesting

    My university's website still links to Ruckus for "Music--Free and Legal Downloading" and we just had a whole bunch of copyright "awareness" posters put up in our computer labs that I think mention Ruckus.

    Of course, every time I heard their name, my first thought was always "Are they still around?" If it wasn't clear before, the music labels don't care about anyone other than themselves, given the sudden shutdown.

  8. The news item is rather subjective though. by aliquis · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Yeah, DRM may not be that nice, but it's there in most commercial cases and WMA isn't any worse than DRMed AAC, probably better.

    The "omg only 3 million songs! iTunes have twice as many! Apple rule!" line doesn't help either ..

    Personally I have never heard about it before but I think it's sad one ad supported alternative dies because choice and diversity is a good thing, and some people would probably rather have ads but plenty of music than very little music because they can't afford more.

    Whole news item summary sounds like an Apple troll.

    1. Re:The news item is rather subjective though. by workman161 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Whole news item summary sounds like an Apple troll.

      I disagree. If you've ever used Ruckus, you can't say you liked it. Most of iTunes is DRM-free now anyways. The only reason Ruckus got any popularity was because it was marketed to college campuses as a safe alternative to file sharing. Naturally, paranoid campuses (such as mine) promoted it heavily, trying to keep the RIAA off their backs.

    2. Re:The news item is rather subjective though. by Darundal · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I thought colleges bought subscriptions for their students, not just promoted it.

    3. Re:The news item is rather subjective though. by eggy78 · · Score: 2, Informative

      If you've ever used Ruckus, you can't say you liked it.

      That's for sure. If it were just graphical ads (even animated images), it might've been tolerable. With all of the flash and audio-enabled ads, it was just too much. And the audio was usually on by default, meaning I had some random internet lady talking to me while I was trying to check out some music.

      That's not to mention the player, which was a little lighter on the ads (you had to go to the website to select any new music, so most of the ads were there), but for some reason always consumed all available CPU power (this is on a single-core CPU with HT, so it is pegged at 50%). It was not only difficult to use, but also made the computer almost unusable.

      I am not going to miss it, but I have a few less technically-minded friends who, despite their occasional frustration with it, will probably be sad that it's gone.

    4. Re:The news item is rather subjective though. by Hordeking · · Score: 2, Informative

      I thought colleges bought subscriptions for their students, not just promoted it.

      No, they bought it on behalf of their students, and lumped it into their tuition, along with those big paychecks for the administrators.

      Once they set up an account "on behalf of the students" and said "here, use this", they didn't give a shit one way or another, since if the RIAA started badgering them, they could point at that and say "We're not culpable, we tried to do it your way". Of course, they're not doing it to protect the students, they were doing it to protect their own asses.

      --
      Disclaimer: The opinions and actions of the US Gov't are in no way representative of those held by this author or its ci
  9. Point of Awareness by Demonantis · · Score: 2, Informative

    The Record industry should look at Ruckus and realize that its not free music that people pirate. It is the convenience of pirated music that they want. The Record industry just needs to think and not use DRM.

  10. DRM + ads by Elder+Lane+Hour · · Score: 4, Funny

    Wait, wait, wait, so you're saying that this store combines DRM and ads? Wow!

    And their range is a fraction of iTunes', which is a fraction of the pirate bay's, you say? Cool!

    What's that? The store client is buggy, and there's only one type of uncommonly used proprietary format? No shit!

    Oh and you say it closed down? I wonder why something like that would happen...

  11. Helping you understand by SuperKendall · · Score: 2, Informative

    I'm happy to help you understand the things that seem beyond you.

    Apple is not on your side, they only care about increasing revenue and profits just like any other monolith.

    And (shocker) it turns out being customer friendly (as in forcing studios to give up DRM) brings more profits to Apple! Duh! Just because that's a primary motive of Apple does not mean the end result for you the consumer is the same as if they "were on your side". If your side is one that brings a company more profit, then in fact they are driven to be on your side. You just have to know what they consider profitable to understand if the actions they take will be agreeable to you.

    Also, you made that last part up completely.

    He described how the system actually works, rather the opposite from "made up".

    Explain how a DRM scheme works that doesn't require some verification system, please I'd love to know.

    See, here's the part where you need to learn to read more carefully. He didn't say there was no verification system, just that once you bought the music it did not need to contact Apple to work (and here we are talking about the legacy DRM music stuff, not the majority of Apple's music which is now DRM free).

    The reason is that with the Apple DRM, your whole computer is authorized to play the DRM files you receive from Apple.

    Thus you can buy a song, it's downloaded to your computer with the DRM wrapped around tailored to the authorization from your computer. You can play the audio/video file until the end of time with no network connection. If you like, you can think of it as your own computer being the authorization server.

    Similarily, devices are authorized and the same holds true there - music sent to your device works there as well indefinitely, with no network connection.

    Apple saves a ton of headaches and money not having a DRM authorization server that has to be up 24/7 in order for people's music/video to work, by authorizing up front they scale the load back to a single effort instead of repeated requests (almost true, since of course from time to time you may need to authorize a new computer or device but it's still basically O(1)). There's that whole "company saving money is the same as your best interests" thing again.

    The patronizing tone of this reply is brought to you by the arrogant tone of yours.

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  12. What took so long? by businessnerd · · Score: 2, Informative

    I'm surprised it took this long for them to die. When I was a senior in college (3 years ago), Ruckus was introduced on my campus to help combat all of the piracy. It was dead on arrival. Everyone with an iPod saw the lack of support, shrugged, and then returned to their iTunes or piracy. Those like myself (no iPod, but running Linux)saw the lack of Linux support and the oodles of DRM and shouted "NO FUCKING WAY!" to anyone thinking about using it. Anyone who actually got to the part of trying to use it, gave up quickly after messing with the awful client software and realizing all of the limitations that the DRM provided. They handed us shit on a silver platter and called it a free lunch, but no one was interested.

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