With both the government and University cracking down on illegal downloading, it seems like students will have to go back to spending $15 on a CD for that one song they like. But with the growing selection of alternate music Web sites available to students, those willing to browse a bit may not be forced to spend a bundle.
Personalized Internet radios and easy-to-download audio players characterize the legal music playing revolution. Sites such as Ruckus.com, Last.fm and Pandora.com enable music lovers to listen to a favorite or newly discovered artist for free and, in many cases, recommend bands similar to the originally selected artists.
Ruckus
Ruckus is an online music community with “Facebook-site functionality,” according to Tim Hurley, a Ruckus spokesperson. The site offers college students free access to its library, consisting of an impressive 2.5 million songs.
“I don’t think it’s fair to steal profits from bands that need it by downloading music, so I use Ruckus,” Abby Cranford, a freshman in First Year College, said.
According to Ruckus spokesperson Andrew Soucy, Ruckus allows students to recommend music to friends, create and publish playlists and check out other students” music libraries.”
Students download and play songs through the Ruckus Player, but can only copy or burn individually purchased songs to a CD. However, the program benefits students not only by providing a free music community, but also saving its users money.
“Ruckus lets you know if you will like a CD before you buy it,” Cranford said.
According to Hurley, a portability license is available to students who wish to both access the Ruckus library and burn songs to a CD.
“Students also have the option to sign up for ‘Ruckus to Go,’ which lets students upload songs to any MP3 player that supports the ‘Plays for Sure,'” Soucy said.
Ruckus also features, according to Soucy, popular movies that can be bought through a subscription or viewed for free if the student attends an affiliated school, or “a school in which Ruckus forms an agreement with a college or university.”
This year, Ruckus announced all college students have access to the program. However, the Ruckus player is not compatible with Macintosh, so a portion of the student population remains unable to gain access to its resources.
Last.fm
Last.fm, established in London, England, provides customers with a combination of individualized tools. According to Martin Stiksel, the cofounder of Last.fm, the site includes an Internet radio, a personal music focused profile and Last.fm software.
The Last.fm software is a free, easily downloaded music player that accesses Last.fm’s music selection from the user’s desktop. The player creates a personalized station, generated from a single chosen artist or tag — a general category of music — and artists who are similar to the original choice.
For example, a station based on the artist Elliott Smith generates a selection of multiple artists, including Iron & Wine, Nick Drake, Sufjan Stevens and the Pixies. A “summertime” tag plays artists such as Led Zeppelin, Wu-Tang Clan, Joanna Newsom and Paris Hilton. Tags can also be genres of music, such as folk or rap.
“What [the software] does is called scrobbling, meaning ‘to track the music you listen to on your own computer,'” said Stiksel.
Last.fm’s online user profile lists the scrobbled music history, which is generated from all songs played on the software, and allows users to friend and message others, test music compatibility and keep track of local music events. Songs from iTunes can also be played and listed through the software.
However, songs played through Last.fm cannot be downloaded onto any software unless bands that have a Last.fm profile have uploaded them. Currently, there are over 100,000 free, downloadable songs.
Pandora
The Music Genome Project, which Pandora Media Inc. describes as “a crazy project started back in early 2000 to capture the complex musical DNA of songs using a large team of highly trained musicians,” is the engine that powers Pandora — an innovative online music-recommendation radio.
“Music lovers need only enter the name of their favorite song or artist and Pandora does the rest, creating a tailored radio station providing a stream of songs that share key musical characteristics,” Michele Husak, Pandora’s director of communications, said.
The Pandora radio supports up to 100 of these specialized stations, and its team of about 50 music analysts does not skim the surface of musical qualities, but instead delves into the task of uncovering the true nature of thousands of songs and matches them perfectly with their equals.
“Each song in this massive collection, which covers pop, rock, jazz, electronica, hip-hop, country, blues, R&B and Latin, is analyzed by one of over 50 trained musicians and assessed against up to 400 distinct musical attributes — such as melody, harmony, rhythm, etc. — to capture the song’s unique musical identity,” Husak said.
Pandora provides its users with an online profile, which tracks played music, and a comment box. Users can friend others and discover those who have similar music interests.
“Pandora gives each listener a unique personalized listening experience, full of new musical discovery across the entire music genome,” Husak said.
Though the program powering Pandora is unprecedented, difficulties arise due to copyright complications. The play of a single artist is limited and, once the listener has skipped over six songs in an hour, the skipping feature deactivates. In addition, users cannot replay a song once it has finished.
Unless file sharing is legalized, its practice will forever hold the costly risk of getting caught for illegal downloaders. Though each online radio site has its share of novel aspects and cumbersome drawbacks, the legality, ingenuity and multitude of online radios prove to be their indisputable advantage.