AU is offering a free, legal music and movie downloading service to on-campus students starting today at 9 a.m.
The downloading service, called Ruckus, will be available to on-campus students for the remainder of the semester. It has more than 700,000 music titles and a limited number of movies. Every student received an e-mail with Ruckus instructions and username and password information this morning.
The University is offering the service in hopes to stop illegal downloading on campus.
"We would really like to avoid our students getting subpoenaed, but the temptation of music downloading is great," said Julie Weber, executive director of Housing and Dining. "We're getting [Ruckus] because illegal downloading is a huge problem - not just at AU, but everywhere."
Last November, the Recording Industry Association of America requested the names of three AU students who were illegally downloading files from the Internet.
Unlike other illegal downloading programs, Ruckus is loaded onto one of the University's servers.
"It's all on the intranet. The downloading is not going through all of the Internet portals, so it will not affect our Internet speed at all," Weber said. "Illegal services not only violate copyright law, but slow down our network because [files] are coming in over the Internet. ... [Illegal downloading] affects everybody's ability to use the University's network."
Ruckus is not the only legal downloading site.
"There have been a couple of legal music downloading services that have popped up in the past year or so," Weber said. "We tried to get legal Napster last fall, but that didn't work out, and then [Ruckus] was presented to us."
Ruckus is legal because it has purchased the digital copyrights to more than 700,000 music titles.
"The owners of the copyrights can sell the sharing rights to as many [downloading systems] as they want to," Weber said. "Everybody pays a royalty fee to have those rights."
Ruckus is different from many downloading systems. Unlike Napster, which charges members 99 cents per file, Ruckus charges a subscription fee of $5 a month for unlimited downloading services, according to Weber.
Ruckus is also the only legal service that has limited movie downloading. Ruckus offers 50 titles per month, ranging from "pretty popular ones like 'Pulp Fiction' to smaller cult films," Weber said.
At the end of the month, those movie licenses expire and 50 new movies will be available for downloading. A student will be able to keep the movie on his computer for a month, and once he starts watching it he has three days until the license expires, according to Weber.
"For example, if you're flying to California over spring break, you can download a movie onto your laptop and watch it on the plane," Weber said.
Unlike other downloading programs, Ruckus also has a "whole bunch of local content so that students can submit things to get posted on the Ruckus Web site," Weber said. It also has a profile section that is similar to thefacebook.com. Students can post pictures and connect with other Ruckus members.
"It seems like a really cool package," Weber said.
Although Ruckus will only be available to on-campus residents (including Park Bethesda and Tenley campus residents) in the spring, Weber said she hopes AU will expand its availability to off-campus students in the fall.
This semester Ruckus is available to students free of charge. In the fall, a $50 fee will be added to students' residence hall fee.
"Other schools who [also have downloading services] get about 80 percent of their students signed up for it," Weber said.
Students who do not live on campus during the summer will still be able to access Ruckus.
"Ruckus has told us they will keep students' Ruckus membership live over the summertime, so if you're gone ... your Ruckus membership will still be live," Weber said.
However, Weber admits the Ruckus agreement has some flaws.
"Currently with the Ruckus license, you cannot burn CDs of the music," Weber said. "You can load it onto your computer and play it all you want off of your computer, but you cannot burn it onto a CD."
Weber said AU hopes to add those rights by fall semester.
AU's use of Ruckus means that other file-sharing programs can no longer be used. "Because we are providing [Ruckus] for free for the spring semester for everybody, the donor that has made that possible for us has a condition that we have to block illegal downloading," Weber said. "So if you try to use Kazaa, you won't be able to anymore."
Students have mixed feelings regarding the site.
"Personally, I will not use the program because it will be easier for me to buy songs off of iTunes," said Sarah Bilodeau, a sophomore in the School of Communication.
Bilodeau, like many students nationwide, has an iPod and prefers to use iTunes as her main source of downloading music.
"I don't like being charged for something that I am not going to use," she said.
However, Erin Kelley, a sophomore in the School of International Service, thinks the service is a great idea.
"It gives students a chance to legally download music for free," she said. "For those who otherwise wouldn't download music, it's a safe, free alternative."
Some students, like Kelley, do not download free music because they want to avoid getting into file-sharing lawsuits.
If any university student is caught downloading illegally, the university is required to identify the student. Laws in some states, as well as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, require universities to release students' identities if asked, according to an article AU student Lisa Pickoff-White wrote for United Press International. The article indicated, however, that students were generally unconcerned with the laws, or the fact that three AU students had been subpoenaed.
In order to stop students from getting tangled in legal issues, many universities, like AU, are turning toward downloading subscription programs like Ruckus, Napster, Rhapsody and iTunes.
George Washington University teamed with Napster in hopes that its students would stop illegal downloading. Through Napster, students can download songs for 99 cents each, although "many students do not like the service and do not use it," GWU senior Andrew McLaughlin told Pickoff-White.
The Information Technology Help Desk at AU has been fully trained on Ruckus.
Ruckus representatives will also be available on campus to help students set up their membership on Monday in TDR from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and 4:30 to 7:30 p.m.
For more information on Ruckus, visit www.ruckusnetwork.com.
