Ruckus

My friend recently told me about this website called Ruckus.com and tonight, when I should have been working on a paper, I checked it out.

The program is designed for "poor college students" who are unable to afford all the music their hearts may desire. It is kind of like a hybrid between Facebook and Napster.

One creates an account by giving one's name and college e-mail address.

In this way, the company makes sure it caters only to its desired demographic.

You can download many different songs, sometimes even whole albums.

Here is the catch - with the most basic version of the program, you are unable to take the files off your computer onto an mp3 player or an iPod.

I created an account and downloaded some music. Relient K, Johnny Cash, Rage Against the Machine, and the Rolling Stones were some of the bands I sampled. At this point, I am not sure that it is an ethically-sound venture. It almost makes no difference that you cannot take the files off your computer. If you had the right cables, you could just hook your computer up to your stereo system and listen as if you were listening to a CD.

One of the biggest questions I have is this: How do artists give or not give permission for their music to be on this type of database?

Or

How do they prevent their music from being sold digitally?

I have a feeling that I will gain insight as we continue learning about the politics of production.

One thing I did notice was that the site was not devoid of commercialism. There were normal ads on the site, and once, one of those cheesy "Attention-Your-computer-will-explode-if-you-don't-click-OK" ads popped up. Also, when you viewed the song you wanted to download, there was also an icon that would take you to buy.com, so that you could purchase the song.

The premise of the site was that the music was free.

Nevertheless, the site was not completely free of all parties who were interesting in making money.

This is what my Saturday-night ruckus is all about.