Ruckus Comes to UCLA

The ad-supported music download service, Ruckus, has just made its fall debut at UCLA. Ruckus, which advertises itself as a free service, has a library of over 3 million independent and mainstream songs. According to the Ruckus website, the only requirement for students is that they be enrolled in a participating institution and have an active ".edu" email address. Reports seem to be mixed on the actual "free" nature of the service. While Engadget reports that the service is free to campuses, Forbes.com reports that the service costs the school a blanket fee unless a minimum number of students register with the service. Ruckus states that it intends to make profits based on its advertisements.

The “free” songs don’t work on Mac, can’t be burned to a CD, and will not play on an iPod or Zune player. The company will release the DRM controls only if a $4.99 subscription fee is paid. In addition, Ruckus also offers premium content ('permanent' songs and movies) for a fee.

I think that this is an excellent idea, provided Ruckus can manage to make it profitable and blanket fees are not charged to institutions. I like that students receive access to free, legal music they would have otherwise probably pirated. Will the free service, with all of its stipulations, be a hit with students? Tough to tell. Keep in touch for more updates.

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e-Research: Reality or Science Fiction?

I recently found a nice little article on Science Commons highlighting James Boyle's recent column "The irony of a web without science." James Boyle's article provides a critical perspective on how science, which requires great deals of collaboration, is reported predominantly within the closed, firewalled environments provided by scientific journals. He notes that the cost for a scientific journal subscription is astronomical - on the order of $20,000 - barring most average users from even reading the material. Boyle outlines the problem:

"The world wide web was designed in a scientific laboratory to facilitate access to scientific knowledge. In every other area of life - commerce, social networking, pornography - it has been a smashing success. But in the world of science itself? With the virtues of an open web all around us, we have proceeded to build an endless set of walled gardens, something that looks a lot like Compuserv or Minitel and very little like a world wide web for science."

The Science Commons article points out that "open" content such as scientific literature is a prerequisite for "[an] almost-mythical 'e-research' world" to which Boyle alludes and for which the Science Commons strives. The "e-research" world that they envision is similar to something like open office or linux, where hordes of philanthropical programmers devote large portions of their time to a product that is designed to be free for all.

Access to historical scientific content is certainly necessary for any form of “e-research” to prosper. However, this does not excuse scientists - most of whom have access to this content - for the current lack of scientific, internet-generated content on the web. In my understanding of copyright law (which I will admit, is meager) discussions concerning the contents of copyrighted scientific articles are considered a fair use of the material and are perfectly legal, even in an internet “published” domain such as a forum or a wiki. The number of legitimate scientific forums on the internet, however, remains sparse at best with the notable exception of arXiv.org.

So what is holding people back? Are scientists - the type of people who created the internet - ignorant of its power to facilitate communication? I don’t think so. Rather, I think many scientists are afraid that their original ideas - part of what they get paid for - will not be credited in an environment where “publishing” has little perceived authority, and anonymity of the audience is the norm. Fix these two problems and I think “e-research” has a much better chance at realizing its potential.

What I propose, and will be working on in the future, is a community based upon blogs of a new variety. Members of the community, reviewers and originators of ideas, will be responsible for the upkeep of their own personal blogs. The articles posted in originators' blogs will be in the form of wiki articles, where readers can comment on the article and any changes made to the article can be tracked throughout time. The main difference, however is that only the originator of the article will be able to edit the article. This will provide originators "ownership" to ideas which I think is important if e-research is ever to succeed.

The community's home page will act as its social center containing a forum that creates threads automatically every time a new article from the local blogosphere is generated. The forum will effectively advertise new and interesting articles and, in doing so, advertise the originators' blogs. Comments made on an article in a blog will appear as replies in the traditional sense of a forum, bringing the thread "to the top" and into the public spotlight.

I think a community such as this can work and I am interested to hear people's opinions.

Illegal to Download Copyrighted Material?

In a recent blog post, Matt Baker, an undergraduate student at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) reported that several hundred computers in the residence halls of UCLA showed a message on the desktop warning students not to download copyrighted materials. The message read,

"Do not download copyrighted music, movies, and software. Most material is copyrighted. Obtaining or offering such material in violations of U.S. Copyright Law may result in university disciplinary action and may be punishable with civil and criminal penalties including prison time and money damages."

What about the legal downloading of copyrighted materials through sources such as iTunes? What about copyrighted materials in the public domain? While this is probably an error on the university administrator's behalf, it does show the sort of frenzied fear that the RIAA has instilled into university/college campuses.

EFF Reviews RIAA's War on Music Pirating

August 29, 2007 - Since 2003, the Recording Industry of America (RIAA) has been waging war on illegal pirating of copyrighted music. While illegal file sharing is most certainly wrong, the RIAA has taken their litigations too far. As of today, the RIAA has sued well over 20,000 individuals - some innocent - forcing them to settle, paying thousands of dollars out of court, or be faced with daunting legal fees. In addition, the RIAA has been pressuring the government to intervene on the RIAA's behalf. An amendment to the Higher Education Reauthorization Act was proposed in July, 2007 by Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) which threatens to take federal funding away from selected American colleges unless "technology based detterents" are implemented.

What effect has the RIAA's war on piracy had so far? Trends listed in the report show that traditional P2P file sharing (presumably illegal) has increased by as much as 50% since 2005. Increasing pressure on traditional P2P networks, however, also entices illegal file sharers to switch to different means of file sharing. These include tactics which are harder to monitor, such as file sharing over a personal network or ripping and burning DVDs so the numbers could be even worse.

What is needed is a way for creative artists to get the compensation they deserve while making file sharing legal. The EFF has proposed a that the RIAA issue blanket licenses to universities where students would pay $5 a month for permission to share files. The problem, however, is that some students - who do not share music files - would be forced to pay this monthly fee as it is likely to be included in tuition fees. Find out more and read the report here.

eBay Music Dealer Sues UMG

August 6, 2007 - Troy Agusto, an eBay music dealer who sells rare and collectible CDs under the name Roast Beast Music, (RBM) has counter-sued Universal Music Group (UMG) for illegally demanding that he take down his music. Agusto has been legitimately reselling CDs on eBay, however, UMG argues that the CDs were promotional and thus Agusto's sales violated the exclusive property rights of the copyright holders set forth in 17 U.S.C. § 106(3). In principle, UMG's claim is barred by the first sale doctrine set forth in 17 U.S.C. § 109, which states that the owner of a legally purchased copyright-protected item may resell the item without the permission of the copyright holder. Agusto is being represented by Keker & Van Nest LLP and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. You can catch more on the story here.

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