Music service dies without much 'Ruckus'

02/19/09 - Ruckus, the online music service available to students at the University of Rhode Island for free, shut down recently without warning. Touted during university tours as a free alternative to piracy, the service allowed students to search for and legally download music and some video files.

The service was only available to Windows users, and the files could not be transferred to most portable MP3 players.

"They couldn't download them to iPods, I think that's one of the reasons that they failed," said David Porter, URI director of media and technology services.

The company has given no official word on its abrupt closure beyond a brief statement that met users attempting to access the site Friday, Feb. 6: "Unfortunately, the ruckus service will no longer be provided. Thanks."

The university was not notified prior to the shutdown, and officials have had no contact with the service since.

"They just closed up shop," Porter said.

The service was provided free to URI and other local universities through OSHEAN, a coalition of Rhode Island nonprofit organizations formed to provide Internet technology solutions to its members.

OSHEAN was able to provide Ruckus to member universities free of charge thanks to a central server provided free by the music service.

The service waived the $10,000 price tag of the server for organizations that were able to fill a 7,000-subscriber quota, a mark that OSHEAN easily surpassed, OSHEAN Executive Director George Loftus said.

OSHEAN has also had no word from Ruckus regarding the shutdown, despite efforts to contact the service, Loftus said.

Currently, OSHEAN is looking at alternatives to the service.

One service Loftus said the organization has been looking into is Qtrax, a relatively new Internet service, which is described on its Web site as the world's first free and legal peer-to-peer digital music site.

"The thing we're not sure about is whether there is a service that is beneficial for us to run in the core of the OSHEAN network," Loftus said.

Instead, OSHEAN will likely issue recommendations for services that can be individually downloaded by students, Loftus said.

"The thing that was unique about Ruckus was that by putting the server at the core of the network, it allowed people to get the music ... without using up all their Internet connectivity," Loftus said.

Under the heading "Piracy Alternatives," the URI Help Desk site recommends Last.fm, Internet Radio, Pandora Internet Radio, and Rhapsody.com as substitutes.

These sites, said URI Information Security Specialist William Forte, are intended as temporary alternatives while the university looks for a permanent replacement.

"We like to offer the information that these are free ways, or ad-supported ways, that you can still get the same content but not break the law," Forte said.

Many URI students claimed to be unaware of or unaffected by the site's closure, but friends Rebecca Beaulieu and Katherine Costello had a different reaction.

"I went to use it the other day and I was like 'What? I can't download music anymore,'" said Beaulieu, a sophomore.