Do students partake in a spot of file sharing of an evening? I would think so. And who could blame them? Not I. Filesharing is a natural reaction to people of the same tastes wanting to share those tastes. Now the RIAA is pressuring schools, colleges and Universities to offer a safe alternative to popular systems like Ares. The replacement’s name? Ruckus.
Ruckus is everything that a good file sharing isn’t: it is boring, it is lacking in choice, it is full of DRM. Far from perfect, far from useful. Ruckus is the skipping rope to Ares’ PS3. Will the students choose that rather than the filesharing that they are used to and that they enjoy? That seems very unlikely to me, but let’s see what happens.
This approach, while not typical of the RIAA in that it doesn’t involve suing someone (yet…), is indicative of a group of people that simply haven’t thought something through properly. This is not the solution.
[…] can see – and I think they probably can too – that this isn’t a like for like swap. File-sharing is the sharing of files whereas Ruckus allows students to download DRM-protected music. […]
Campus filesharing | A Mac Mini Enthusiast Network
April 8th, 2008
[…] apps like Ares: it’s simply not comparable. Whereas filesharing means you actually share files with your friends – and not just music downloads, either – the proposed alternative Ruckus only provides you with […]
Ruckus tool against illegal filesharing | Team NoLimits
April 8th, 2008
[…] Filesharing is a well established and popular hobby amongst many. To try and encourage students to use an inferior alternative is move doomed to failure from the start. Filesharing is alive and well and, as the users would say, if it’s not broken, don’t fix it. […]
Schools battle filesharing | The Moon - Breaking News and Facts about the Earth's Moon | Lunacorp.com
April 8th, 2008
[…] file-sharing is the sharing of files, not the downloading of DRM-protected music. Ruckus is not file-sharing in any way, and the attempt […]
The Ruckus about filesharing | Grid Packaging Tools
April 8th, 2008