Anti-P2P bill gets warm welcome from Ruckus.com
A music-sharing site supported by the Recording Industry Association of America is lending its support to new federal legislation intended to strong-arm universities into curbing peer-to-peer piracy.
The chief executive of Ruckus.com, which offers advertising-supported music at no cost to college students, said Monday that he backs a bill introduced Friday by Democrats that requires universities to agree to offer "alternatives" to peer-to-peer infringement--upon pain of all their students losing federal financial aid.
Ruckus would probably be the largest single beneficiary of that requirement. And its CEO, Mike Bebel, is enthusiastic about the legislation.
"I think that's the right approach," he said, referring to the 747-page spending and financial aid bill. "There are plenty of us who are out there offering alternatives."
"I think that's fair and appropriate," Bebel added. "I see no reason why (this requirement) should be different from any other mandate that's associated with federal money. The schools themselves are IP-based entities. Why shouldn't they be accountable for helping their brethren?"
Ruckus uses digital rights management (DRM) technology--Windows Media--to limit the use of downloaded songs. They can be played on Windows computers, but not on a Macintosh running OS X, a Linux computer, an iPhone, or an iPod. When students leave or graduate, their music collection stops working.
Even with those limitations, Ruckus has managed to sign up over 170 schools, with either no fees or minimal fees (to cover the cost of a local server) required. "Our model has been working, and the legislation supports a model that (has) been working," Bebel said.
The RIAA has lauded Ruckus as a way to wean students off of peer-to-peer networks, calling the Web site and service an "innovative business model."
Opposing this idea are the universities themselves, which don't like additional strings attached to the nearly $100 billion doled out each year in federal financial aid.
A letter sent last week to House Democrats charged: "Such an extraordinarily inappropriate and punitive outcome would result in all students on that campus losing their federal financial aid--including Pell grants and student loans that are essential to their ability to attend college, advance their education, and acquire the skills necessary to compete in the 21st-century economy." It was signed by the chancellor of the University of Maryland system, the president of Stanford University, the general counsel of Yale University, and the president of Penn State.
Declan McCullagh, CNET News' chief political correspondent, chronicles the intersection of politics and technology. He has covered politics, technology, and Washington, D.C., for more than a decade, which has turned him into an iconoclast and a skeptic of anyone who says, "We oughta have a new federal law against this." E-mail Declan. 
an unbiased one.
o?pin?ion - noun - a view or judgment formed about
something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge
Additionally, this is a blog post, not a news story, so it will
probably be expressing an opinion. There is no journalistic
requirement for lack of bias.
It's amazing how blatantly the RIAA and MPAA have been publicly buying out government officials whose jobs... at least according to the constitution, is to protect the interests of the American people. Everyone know's that lobbying is nothing more than buying you're way into favor but the RIAA and MPAA have been more public about it then anyone else I can remember recently. Is this what our elected officials are elected to do?
For those that are downloading it, they're not all doing it illegally.
This is group punishment and it's wrong. It's also sending a boatload of business to a company that didn't even earn it.
It's not the job of higher education to send business to these guys. Let them go out and work for it like other companies do.
Charles R. Whealton
Charles Whealton @ pleasedontspam.com
Look how easily Disney gets the copyright laws rewritten in their
favor each time that frigging Mouse gets ready to go into the public
domain.
As long as the entertainment industry can write checks they'll get
pretty much whatever they want.
And if the U.S. government does take away Stafford loan, they will once again be called Indian givers, because for the past 40 years college students have almost always been guarenteed some federal aid under the Higher Education Act of 1965. Especially for something that won't add any academic value to your already outrageously high college tuition.
http://www.mindfully.org...fe-OR-SB742-27feb03.htm
http://www.infowars.com/..._tyranny_in_america.htm
Also, check out this film on Google video to learn about GOVERNMENT SPONSORED TERROR
http://video.google.com/...ocid=786048453686176230
1. Advertise supported music at no cost.
a. but yet the music is technically paid for by the student glancing at advertisements
b. music is not available to the students after they leave school, even though they
technically paid for it by perusing advertisements.
2. Ruckus, wants funding stopped, the term used by on respondent, "MAFIA" is most
fiting, although racketeering would probably be more socially acceptible. Ruckus
thinks that all students should pay the price becaus some miscreants break the
law. By that logic, If a Ruckus Officer is indicted for imbezzelment then all
board members of that company should face the same fate (makes sense to
me).
3. Schools are not arms of the Dept of Justice, or of State, county or city entities.
If a law is broken, the RIAA brings suit, and the investigation should be handled
in the legal system (as broken and corrupt as it is). Lawyers are making a mint
by threatening people.
As for me, just an old retiree, who still has vinyl, 8 tracs, reels, cassettes, and a ton of cd's
but my buying days are over. I used to move my tracks to cd's to create personal cds
to use in the car when traveling, but I will be damned if I want lawyers for the RIAA
screeming. So no, for at least the last few years, I have saved my upwards of a $1000
by not purchasing albums anymore.....Besides, a entire album, may only have 1 or 2
decent cuts on it, so you are paying $14 - $20 plus for two cuts...does that make sense.
But then, who really cares lawyers and big business run the government anyway.
- Ruckus
- by jgarne86 December 4, 2007 12:41 PM PST
- Well it's a start in the right direction but I don't agree that schools should be forced to sign up for this or students lose their grants. Why not just pass a bill to stop these P2P sites from hosting copyrighted music and movies. This will curb the problem. Most downloading comes from the fact that most songs that these people want are just one song off the CD and no one wants to buy a CD for one song, though it's still wrong thats the fact. Most artist today only have one or two songs worth listen to, things are not like it was when we had real music and artist that could really sing.
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