College campuses were once a prime spawning ground for new digital music services.
Those days appear to be over.
Closing the book on the role of campuses as digital music laboratories is the recent demise of Ruckus—an ad-supported music download service that was available for free to students at 200 universities through direct content deals, as well as to anyone else with a .edu e-mail account. The closing came after Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment dissolved their Total Music joint venture, which acquired Ruckus last year.
Ruckus joins a list of several other once-promising services, including Napster and Cdigix, that suffered an early death after attempting to offer college students a low-cost, legal alternative to peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing networks. The abrupt closing of Ruckus in early February has left university officials scratching their heads over where to turn next.
Compounding the problem is the U.S. Higher Education Opportunity Act, enacted in August. It requires universities to offer students who use their networks alternatives to popular P2P offerings, along with other measures like implementing technology to block unauthorized distribution of copyrighted works.
But the law doesn't state which measures would be considered appropriate as an “alternative." The U.S. Department of Education is currently defining what that means, but the process could take months.
Those days appear to be over.
Closing the book on the role of campuses as digital music laboratories is the recent demise of Ruckus—an ad-supported music download service that was available for free to students at 200 universities through direct content deals, as well as to anyone else with a .edu e-mail account. The closing came after Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment dissolved their Total Music joint venture, which acquired Ruckus last year.
Ruckus joins a list of several other once-promising services, including Napster and Cdigix, that suffered an early death after attempting to offer college students a low-cost, legal alternative to peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing networks. The abrupt closing of Ruckus in early February has left university officials scratching their heads over where to turn next.
Compounding the problem is the U.S. Higher Education Opportunity Act, enacted in August. It requires universities to offer students who use their networks alternatives to popular P2P offerings, along with other measures like implementing technology to block unauthorized distribution of copyrighted works.
But the law doesn't state which measures would be considered appropriate as an “alternative." The U.S. Department of Education is currently defining what that means, but the process could take months.
