KNOXVILLE — University of Tennessee students will have a new way to download free and legal music thanks to a partnership between UT and the music downloading service Ruckus.
The agreement between UT and Ruckus will allow students to have free unlimited music downloads at especially high speed.
Ruckus offers more than 3 million songs for download, providing students with a wide variety of choices in all musical genres. The network also includes movie downloads and the ability to share music with other members.
As part of its agreement with UT, students will have especially fast access to the music offered by Ruckus, allowing them to download complete albums in seconds.
“We’re excited to offer students access to Ruckus,” said Ron Laffitte, UT associate dean of students. “As a university, we think it’s very important to give students a free and legal alternative when it comes to downloading.”
Ruckus is the most recent option offered by UT as part of UTunes, an effort to provide legal downloading for students that has been in place since 2004.
More than 173 colleges and universities across the country have signed on with Ruckus, which specializes in providing legal download services in the higher education field. A number of UT professors will be using Ruckus in their classes to download and share relevant musical selections with students. Students at over 1000 universities nationwide are using Ruckus to download their music legally.
Students can sign up for Ruckus at www.ruckus.com. Students must register using their UT e-mail address. Music downloaded by students stays on their computer, allowing students to listen to the music even when they aren’t online. UT students who want to put their music onto portable MP3 players also can sign up for the premium Ruckus2Go service at a discounted rate under this new agreement.
In addition to providing access to Ruckus through UTunes, UT is reminding students about the dangers of illegal downloading. Throughout the summer, incoming freshmen heard about the importance of using only legal means to download music during a number of orientation sessions. Students in campus residence halls have heard about illegal downloading from resident assistants as well as from UT’s Office of Information Technology.
Students who want to learn more about Ruckus and UTunes can visit http://oit.utk.edu/utunes. For more information on UT’s policies on copyright infringement and illegal downloading, visit http://oit.utk.edu/copyright.
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Contacts:
Jay Mayfield (865-974-9409, jay.mayfield@tennessee.edu)
Ron Laffitte(865-974-3179, ronl@utk.edu)
Chris Lawson (703-464-6551, clawson@ruckus.com)
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