While UCLA continues to make legal music downloads available to students, announcing the addition of another new service last week, the Get Legal program still lacks the incentives that can draw students to their use.
The key to convincing students to use university-endorsed services is providing incentives, and the university’s newest service fails to bring any real ones for the many iPod-using, CD-burning students on campus.
Called Ruckus, the service is free to students, allowing them to download and listen to songs from their computers using the proprietary Ruckus player.
But if students are seeking music to burn onto CDs or to put onto their iPods, the service comes at the same price students would find on other legal download sites such as iTunes, which removes any real incentive to use the service beyond simply listening on one’s computer.
Ruckus is intended to replace the Ctrax download service, provided by Cdigix. In February, Cdigix announced its intention to end its service to universities this month.
Ruckus, with its larger song library, is in many ways an improvement over the former Ctrax service. Starting in the fall, access to a select number of videos from the Ruckus services will be available through the California Educational Network.
But there are three important factors that make Ruckus less than desirable.
First, for the most part, the Ruckus service limits students to listening to music on their computers through a single, exclusive application. The free service allows users to download tracks and listen to them through the Ruckus player, but only through the Ruckus player. Only students with a specific portable Windows device can take the music on the go, and even that service comes at the cost of $4 per month.
Second, the service is only free to students who are currently enrolled at the university. Once students graduate, they will be charged a fee of $8.99 per month to continue using the service ““ and to keep their music. If they do not pay, they will lose all of their music downloaded from Ruckus.
Third, the announcement states that students, faculty and staff will be able to download individual tracks for 99 cents, and whole albums for $9.99. For those download-savvy music buyers, these prices might look familiar. They are exactly the same prices offered by the most popular music download service, the iTunes Music Store.
These three factors bring up the question: What incentive do students have to use this service over the standard iTunes Music Store, or any other service with the same prices?
Simply being able to listen on their computers will not satisfy the needs of many students with alternative portable music devices. And, at the same cost to students as major retailers, there is no more incentive to buy from Ruckus than from iTunes (less, in fact, when considering that digitally protected Ruckus music would not be compatible with the iPod).
The university is strongly encouraged to continue seeking services to curb illegal downloads by Bruins, but new services should include incentives that encourage their use over major download sites, and should not limit students to listening to music on their computers.
It is smart that the university is willing to work within students’ preferred methods for downloading music, but to replace one faulty system with another isn’t the answer.