Representatives from Ruckus, the music and movie downloading service available to students living on campus tabled in Mary Graydon Center Tuesday to give an update on how the program is being implemented on campus.
"We want students to be coming back to Ruckus on a daily basis to find out what's going on on campus," said Claire Brunton, who manages AU's Ruckus account.
Approximately 1,500 students downloaded a total of 205,932 files as of March 14, said Brunton. AU students as a group are downloading the same 15,000 music and movie files, a fraction of Ruckus' database of about 600,000.
Representatives also explained more about all of the program's features and addressed students' concerns. Brunton said she thinks many students don't know about all the program's features and some aren't willing to give the program a chance.
"They look at us as just a music store and a movie store, but we're more," she said. "We don't want to be another online store."
The program offers community features like profiles similar to thefacebook.com, peer music reviews and a way to share student-made movies and music. Users can also view others' playlists and intern or work for
Ruckus.
The ability to digitize student-made media could help publicize campus music groups, Brunton said, although some students said they worried making the files free would cut into CD sales.
Brunton said the file sharing program hasn't been well-received by some on campus.
Ruckus has gotten "bad press" at AU, said Brunton, who reads campus media and online forums. Some students have associated Ruckus with the arrival of Audible Magic, a program that blocks illegal file sharing in dorms and parts of MGC.
Audible Magic was a condition of the grant AU received from an anonymous donor that pays for a legal media downloads program, The Eagle previously reported. The grant did not specify Ruckus as the legal download program AU would use, so Ruckus and Audible Magic are not contractually linked.
Ruckus also suffers from bad timing, Brunton added, because it became available amidst AU's announcement that local phone service would be cut from dorms, and AU cut golf and tennis teams.
The teams were later restored, and none of these events are related to Ruckus, but Brunton said she thinks students have become more skeptical of administrative decisions.
"Students feel they don't have a say [in Ruckus]," she said, but she noted that AU is under no obligation to continue to use the program after the free trail period ends. If the University keeps Ruckus, it will cost students $50 added to their residence hall fee, The Eagle previously reported.
The feedback she got from students during tabling revealed that many had heard from friends the program wasn't good, so they haven't used it.
"I just hope they give us a chance," she said. "A lot of them said, 'I downloaded it but my friends told me it was rubbish so I
didn't try it.'"
Students also complained that the program isn't compatible with Macs and Ruckus songs cannot be transferred to iPods. The Mac operating system isn't compatible now, Brunton explained, but Ruckus is working on the issue.
Ruckus will be partially accessible to Mac users in April, allowing them to view community aspects of Ruckus, like user profiles, but not download most music.
Also in April, users will be able to purchase CDs of music downloaded from Ruckus.
Ruckus in its current form was launched last October after a year and a half of research, Brunton said. Eight other schools have signed up for Ruckus so far.
