Ruckus coming to Mac?
For the past year Ruckus has offered free music downloads to college students, dropping their fee for a free music model and blasting members with advertisements. Up until this point Ruckus has only been available for Windows Operating System users, but rumors have it that within a few days Ruckus will be available for Mac users. Unfortunately, Ruckus will not be compatible with the iPod.
“Ruckus is currently developing a Mac solution that will be live on Ruckus.com within weeks,” said Lawson. “As for the iPod problems, Apple simply does not license their technology to others. Ruckus would love to be able to be compatible, but the iPod will not allow it.” (The New Hampshire)
The main reason colleges and universities team up with Ruckus is to curb bandwidth usage from peer to peer networks such as Limewire. A server is installed at every school, and anyone with an email address that ends with .edu can sign up and download an unlimited number of songs, from a catalogue of over two millions songs at a low 128kbps quality.
Anyone looking for DRM free music should look elsewhere. Ruckus locks their music files with an intensive DRM which prohibit users from burning CD, listen to the music in iTunes, or uploading the music on their iPod. The limitations don’t stop there; the music files expire after the student graduates. At this point the user has to pay $9 each month to continue their Ruckus membership. Seeing that the DRM has been declared dead, it will be interesting to see if people are still willing to put up with limitations in exchange of free music.