The Uninformed Loss of Ruckus

On February 10th, all students received an e-mail from IT services. The e-mail read:
“Please be informed that Albright College IT Services has received a letter informing us that the Ruckus service was shut down effective immediately. The Ruckus service is the free music download service that all students have had access to for the past 2 years. We will be researching the options that we have to consider; but, at this time, this service is no longer available.”

Ruckus was a beneficial service too many. It allowed students to access music free of charge as well as prevented artists from getting their work stolen. Students on campus loved being able to login into a website, and in 5 seconds having full albums downloaded, and downloaded legally at that. It was a great service. One student replied “I tried to go download a few songs, and when I went to their website, it wouldn’t work. I had no idea why, and when I said something to my roommate, he told me about the e-mail.”

This e-mail came, and was left open to a lot of questions. Was the service just shut down for Albright? What was the reasoning for the shut down? What other options are there to consider? Upon going to Ruckus' website on the night of the 10th, everything looked normal. Only difference was I was unable to log in. When I went to the website on the 17th, I found the image shown at the top of this page. No information was available there.

On February 17th, I went to the help desk to ask some questions. Ryan from the Help Desk had stated that “the service as a whole was shutdown, not just for Albright.” When asked about the e-mail, he stated “The director just told me what to send out, and I did.” My last question was what other options are being considered, and I was told “we are still looking, but have none at this time.”

When I asked to speak with the director, he was unavailable for comment.
It is not our school’s fault that the service is gone, because Ruckus itself is gone. However; the e-mail sent out was very uninformative, and left too much open for question. It should have said Ruckus is shutting down, therefore the service is no longer available to all colleges. It should have said that we have no other options at this time, but are searching for alternative music sources. The e-mail lead me to believe that IT had an idea of where to turn for music, and that the issue would be resolved soon. After my interview with the Help Desk, I found out I thought wrong. So be informed that although IT is searching for other options, but they currently do not have any, contradictory to what their e-mail said. Let us hope for a fast search, and another option to be found soon.

Photo: Courtesy of Ruckus