Not to make a Ruckus but....
As with all things, you get what you pay for. This adage applies to the new legal online music service that is now provided to University of Maryland students.
Ruckus is an improvement of some of the legitimate music services available, such as the iTunes music store, in the sense that a user doesn't have to pay a .99 fee per song. A "friends" feature allows a user to share playlists with one another, and an application on Facebook allows someone too see the popular songs here on campus.
With those advantages come the unbelievable disadvantages that essentially cripple the service. first, Ruckus' online library contains about 3 million songs, as compared to that of iTunes, which clocks in with about 5 million. In addition, when you download a "song" from Ruckus, you don't exactly get what you think you are getting. You get a temporary file, one that must be renewed every 30 days. Without this renewal, the songs that have been acquired won't play. What is even more ridiculous is that, the files come with digital restrictions embedded in them. These digital restrictions prohibit the use of these songs on MP3 players. So far, one would say that this service is almost useless. What's more is that the service is incompatible with Macs and the Linux operating system.
It is almost laughable for the university to provide this service to us. nice try OIT, but in order to quash illegal file sharing, you are going to need to try harder than this.
Ruckus is an improvement of some of the legitimate music services available, such as the iTunes music store, in the sense that a user doesn't have to pay a .99 fee per song. A "friends" feature allows a user to share playlists with one another, and an application on Facebook allows someone too see the popular songs here on campus.
With those advantages come the unbelievable disadvantages that essentially cripple the service. first, Ruckus' online library contains about 3 million songs, as compared to that of iTunes, which clocks in with about 5 million. In addition, when you download a "song" from Ruckus, you don't exactly get what you think you are getting. You get a temporary file, one that must be renewed every 30 days. Without this renewal, the songs that have been acquired won't play. What is even more ridiculous is that, the files come with digital restrictions embedded in them. These digital restrictions prohibit the use of these songs on MP3 players. So far, one would say that this service is almost useless. What's more is that the service is incompatible with Macs and the Linux operating system.
It is almost laughable for the university to provide this service to us. nice try OIT, but in order to quash illegal file sharing, you are going to need to try harder than this.
posted by Mike Evans at
12:06 PM
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