Students Are Offered Free Music Downloads

By Saul Hansell

In one more attempt to counter music piracy, major music labels have agreed to support a service that will offer free music downloads – with some substantial restrictions – to any college student.

The service, from Ruckus Network, will be supported by advertising on its Web site and on the software used to download and play songs.

The four major record labels and several independent labels have agreed to license their music to Ruckus at lower rates than they charge other mass market music services on the theory that college students would rather steal songs than pay the $10 to $15 a month that such services normally charge.

Phil Leigh, president of Inside Digital Media, a research firm, said the move also represented a way for labels to experiment with advertising-supported music, a model that he said might be better for the labels than radio, because they could share in the advertising revenue. Music publishers, who represent the composers, are paid by radio stations, but the labels, which represent performing artists, are not.

Ruckus had originally hoped universities would pay a fee to offer free downloads to their students, thereby reducing the legal risks and some of the network expense associated with the use of illegal file-sharing networks. Only 20 universities agreed.

But last year Ruckus decided to switch to a free, advertising- supported approach, although it still required universities to agree and to install a server on their campus networks. That increased participation to about 100 schools, with “several hundred thousand” active users, said Michael Bebel, chief executive of Ruckus.

The new service, which is available now, does not require a university to participate. Rather, it will be made available to those who have an e-mail address ending in .edu, the top-level domain associated with educational institutions.

Because faculty members and many alumni also use an .edu e-mail address, Bebel said the service would ask users if they were students, staff members or alumni. Those who are not students will be asked to pay $8.95 a month for the service.

Ruckus uses Microsoft Windows media technology, so songs can be played only on a user’s personal computer. For $4.99 a month, a user can buy the right to transfer the songs to portable devices compatible with the Microsoft format, including those made by SanDisk and Creative.

But the music will not play on Microsoft’s Zune player or on the Apple iPod. Those restrictions have led to at least some protests that the service discriminates against users of iPods and Macintosh computers, which also are not supported.

Bebel said that about 60 percent of the students on the campuses offering the Ruckus service had registered for it. “Even iPod users on campus will use Ruckus, because they can find music they like before they buy it from Apple or get it another way,” Bebel said.

(c) 2007 International Herald Tribune. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.