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Dave Larsen writes about higher education.
Kelly Mori writes about health and higher education.Home > Blogs > On Campus > Archives > 2009 > February > 12 > Entry
Ruckus online music service shuts down
Ruckus Network, an online music service that provided more than 200 colleges with a free and legal alternative to illegal file swapping, abruptly shut down on Friday, Feb. 6.
Area colleges signed up with Ruckus included Wright State University and the University of Dayton.
“We did shut down the service, and we are closing down the company,” a Ruckus official said to the Chronicle of Higher Education. “We had a pretty good audience, but ad dollars are much fewer and farther between than they were six months ago, and with an ad-supported music service like ours, it became an equation that wouldn’t compute.”
The recording industry has long pressured colleges to hook up with Ruckus, or something like it, the Chronicle reported. When Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America, testified in 2007 at a Congressional hearing on “Piracy on University Networks,” he named Ruckus specifically as something colleges should provide.
A new provision in the Higher Education Act renewed by Congress last year requires colleges to offer alternatives to illegal downloading. Where they will turn now remains unclear.
A recording industry spokeswoman blamed illegal downloading on campuses for killing Ruckus. But the Ruckus official told the Chronicle that the company’s biggest competitors were free but legal options, including online radio services such as Pandora and free music videos on YouTube.
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