Ruckus.com

Most people associate legally downloading of music with itunes.com. I will admit I was one of those people. 99 cents a song seemed like a good deal as opposed to a jail sentence and/or fine. Last week though my friend introduced me to Ruckus.com. It is a free legal way to download music and it is only available to college students. It was launched in 2004 at Northern Illinois University and has been serving the college community ever since.

You do need to register on the site to be able to access the tunes, but it is completely free for students. Alumni and faculty may purchase memberships for $8.99 a month. You just need to submit your school e-mail (so they know you are a college student) and a few other demographic questions. It is only compatible with Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Vista and uses protected WMA and WMV format.

They have millions of songs available, including the latest hits and new releases. I went on automatically trying to stump the site with “rare” bands, such as “The Feeling” and “The Decemberists”, but no luck! Not only did they have the rare bands but they also had EPs and live albums that cannot normally be found at your local record store.

The only problem I see in the service is the lack of ability to burn it or import the music to portable music devices. Once you download the music you are limited to only listening to it on your PC. After adjusting to this, the site turns out not to be so bad. You can listen to an entire album on the site before deciding if you want to purchase the whole album or just a song or two from a vendor like itunes.com. It ends up saving you money in the long run because you won’t waste your money and bad music.

Ruckus.com has been sailing under the rader for some time now, and it is time to let other college students know about the site. Go tell your friends and enjoy the free music while it lasts!

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