Big Labels Offer Free Music to College Students
By: Saul Hansell

In one attempt to counter music piracy, major music labels have agreed to support a service that will offer free music downloads- with some substantial restrictions- to any college student.

Four major record labels and several independent labels have agreed to license their music to Ruckus Network. The service will be supported by advertising on its website and on the software used to download and play songs. The music will be licensed out at a lower rate than the mass market because it is strictly for college students only.
These new site will benefit not only the college students, but it will also benefit they labels representing the artist. Normally on radio the labels do not gain a profit. However, on this site the labels will share in the advertising revenue.
This new service will be made available for anyone who has a email address ending in .Edu. Because alumni and employees of the colleges also may have a .Edu email it is required that the service will ask if the user is a student. If the user is not a student then a fee of $ 8.95 will be expected.
unfortunately the site cannot be downloaded onto everything. Because Ruckus uses Microsoft Windows media the songs can only be used on a PC. The music cannot play on Microsoft Zune player, the ipod, and Mac computers.
I think that this will be a popular site for many college students. Most people have PC's that are not Mac's and it is great that we can get free music without having to worry about getting into trouble.

Written by: Suzanne Reilly