So What's the Deal with Ruckus?

JMAN871

So my college has apparently been threatened with a number of RIAA lawsuits, and the administration has strongly suggested that we students stop using P2P filesharing programs (like OurTunes) to avoid fines or other legal problems courtesy of the RIAA. The school suggested using Ruckus, which is a free and legal for college students. Apparently, potential users with .edu email addresses just need to register for the program and then download the music player.

So two questions: How is the Ruckus service? But more importantly, do I really need to download the Ruckus player? For those of you who have used (or heard of) Ruckus, is there a way that I can convert downloaded files so that I can play them on iTunes? If not, is the Ruckus program safe and stable?

Thanks a lot.

lordswing

The main downside is once you leave school, your music is gone. I don't know how many schools have their own Ruckus server, but apparently Georgia Tech does, and I'm assuming it's pretty stable.

spacerobot

I have been using Ruckus for less than a month, but i have not been using it very much only because I havn't had a whole lot of time to be listening to music. I think you do have to download the player... you download a small file from the ruckus website, then the ruckus player downloads the actual mp3. I'm not sure exactly how it works, but it's something like that.

Once the ruckus player downloads the files, you can go directly to the file location and use whatever program you want to play them (I think). The files are protected so you can't burn them to CD I guess, and you're supposedly not supposed to be able to put them on your mp3/media players. However I have a Toshiba Gigabeat, and I can just copy/paste the mp3's directly on the gigabeats hard drive without any problems. The only beef I have with it is that it doesn't divide the songs up by album, only by artist.

Because they are protected I don't think you can convert the files... but i'm sure theres some method to do that out there. I just don't know how.

As far as I know the ruckus player is safe and stable to use. I only use it to download the songs though, then I just use my mp3 player from there to listen to them.

Another problem I have with ruckus is that it doesn't always have the selection of music I would find on itunes (I never use itunes any more because I hate those file formats because they don't work with my Gigabeat) For example, they only have one Sufjan Stevens album, and it's the one that I don't think is so great. But once you find the music you do want, I think it's a pretty good service considering that it's free and legal.

oh yeah, the files have long goofy numbers after the song name, so if you do copy them to an mp3 player, you have to go through every song and rename it without the numbers. Kind of a hassle, but then again it's a free service.

Sara Lynn

Their music files don't work on ipods.

Gotta burn them to a CD as music files and then rip them again.

TEDIOUS.

darleysam

Holy necropost Batman!

What?

Idx86

I thought this was about Ruckus, the card game.

Anyone play?

Hybridzerg

I suppose since the thread has been resurrected i can post my experience with ruckus. I started using it a few weeks ago and really like it so far. Their music selection is pretty damn nice for a free service and downloads are quick. The only things I don't like are their player/website (clunky and full of ads) and incompatability with ipods and such. I was planning on buying this legal program called tunebite that seems to be able to convert protected wmas into mp3 or whatever format you want, the demo converted the first minute of several songs quickly and easily, so you could import all of the stuff you download to itunes and bypass both of these objections.

TychoCelchuuu

My school uses it, and a few of my friends by extension use it. They seem pretty happy with it.