Let’s Start a Ruckus on College Campuses

Online digital enertainment service Ruckus promotes itself as a legal alternative to that favorite college pastime of illegal peer-to-peer file sharing.

Let’s face it – college campuses and the students who inhabit them are bad places for those who fear for the copyrights of their music and videos. Is there a market here then to make money off of legal distribution of content to students? You bet says Ruckus, a company which is specifically dedicated towards bringing digital media and entertainment services to college campuses.

Ruckus announced today they had signed a deal with New Jersey-based Seton Hall University to provide their students with access to over 1.2 million songs on the company’s digital entertainment service. For a small charge, those same students will gain unlimited access to major studio release movies and hit television shows. This is in addition to the ability to upload their own content and interact with other students using the service’s community features.

Ruckus said they’ve added four new schools in the last seven weeks to their service and that they plan to announce several more before the start of the fall semester.

“Ruckus will be a valuable addition to the already cutting-edge learning technologies offered at Seton Hall University,” said Dr. Stephen Landry, CIO. “As a Catholic institution it is a part of the University’s mission to teach our students to use the digital and computer resources available to them in an ethical manner. We feel it is important to offer our students a legal alternative to illegal peer-to-peer file sharing.”

“Ruckus is very pleased to have reached this agreement with Seton Hall University,” said William J. Raduchel, CEO and chairman of Ruckus. “We are excited to be the digital entertainment provider for their campus, and look forward to having the opportunity to serve as a forum for students to meet each other, interact, download legal music and movies, and even share their own creative work and ideas.”