Music software creates Ruckus

     Ruckus is a new file sharing program that is now being offered at no charge to all GCSU students. Thanks to SGA, downloading and listening to over three million tracks and viewing mainstream and independent films, and music videos are only a click away.
     Lauren McDonald, SGA senator, has headed this project and hopes her hard work will pay off.
     “SGA has been looking into Ruckus since last fall and working to assure that the  service is compatible with our networks,” said McDonald. “But we are very excited to offer this service to students at no charge.”
     Ruckus does not require any student or subscription fees because of a contract between Ruckus and the University System of Georgia. McDonald explained it also a runs off a Georgia education server called PeachNet, which means it does not slow the networks and downloads are often very fast.
     There have been many issues concerning music downloading programs on college campuses due to illegal actions that were taking place, but Ruckus is an alternative to these issues.
     “The tracks downloaded cannot be burned to CDs or MP3 players because of  copyright and royalty infringements, but students do have the option of paying to burn them,” McDonald said. “The prices are often lower than other legal downloading services.”
     Signing up for Ruckus is a very simple process. Students can access it by logging on to Ruckus.com, but it requires a valid GCSU e-mail address.
     “It’s 100 percent virus free and way too easy not to try,” McDonald said.
     SGA is very pleased with the response they are getting from Ruckus. More and more users continue to log on everyday.
     “When I heard about Ruckus, I started using it,” music lover    Rachel Pendergrast said. “It’s a really good system.”
SGA sent out a mass e-mail to all students on April 7, explaining this new program. That day, there were a total of 472 new subscribers and over 17,000 new downloads by GCSU students. These numbers continue to grow as more students become aware of this new program.
     “SGA will be doing on-going advertisement to let students know about the opportunity available to them,” McDonald said.
     Despite all of the positive feedback from Ruckus users, some students do have complaints. McDonald explains that Ruckus is currently not available for students with MAC computers. It requires Microsoft Digital Rights Management, a program that is not available on MAC computers. However, students can access Ruckus and browse other users play lists and profiles.
     Ruckus continues to appear all over college campuses with very positive feedback. The system proves to be very trustworthy and very useful.
     “I’ve spent a lot of time working on getting Ruckus together for the students, so I  hope it will be met with as much enthusiasm as I have for it,” McDonald said.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Apr 18 2008. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry