On the demise of Ruckus, and the un-commodification of recorded sound

Ruckus, the free music portal for college students, owned by TotalMusic, LLC, has ended its operations. A visit to Ruckus.com reveals only the above image with no links, explanations or contact information provided. The DRM-laden download service was ad-supported, but worked primarily with Windows-supported computers, leaving many Mac users out in the cold. As Macs gained popularity, Ruckus lost potential consumers, says a PC World article published earlier today. Also, since the files were so heavily encrypted, they couldn't be transferred to portable devices, such as the ubiquitous iPod.

TotalMusic's Vice President of Product Management, Jason Herskowitz, offered some insight to the demise of the major-label-backed enterprise on his blog.

One of the more than 80 campuses that partnered with the service, UNC-Chapel Hill, adopted Ruckus in 2006 to give students an alternative to illegal file-sharing networks, and in turn, relieve the University from RIAA pressures.

In a story published in The Daily Tar Heel yesterday (full disclosure: I served as Diversions Editor for the DTH for the 2007-2008 school year), students offer a largely unanimous opinion: music should be free.

“I was pretty upset. Actually, really upset,” said Shenise Gilyard, a first-year chemistry major.

“I don’t use iTunes because it’s a dollar a song. Ruckus was great because I didn’t have to buy songs I was just interested in.”

Rob Stewart, a junior environmental studies major, echoed Gilyard’s concern about costs.

“It’s unfortunate,” Stewart said. “That was a sweet deal we had, not having to pay for music.”

In a landscape where the prevailing public opinion is that music no longer has a monetary value, what hope is there for the already sinking music industry?

Herskowitz sums it up rather nicely early into his blog post:

I only hope that someone else figures out how to crack this music-on-the-web nut in a way that is a win for everyone in the value chain. The problem is that to make a music service a win for everyone, then they all of the famished participants have to sit at the table - and be content to let all the others have a little bit to eat, even though they are still hungry themselves.

But it seems awful pessimistic to concede that the only way everybody wins is by agreeing to lose a little bit less.