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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."

14 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. 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. 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. 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.

  7. 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.

  8. 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...