"Ruckus" music service at Cornell

[Mitch Wiedemann <]

I was reading the Cornell Chronicle this morning and found an article 
about "Ruckus," the new music service for students. 

http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Sept07/Ruckus.ws.html

I was disappointed (but not entirely surprised) to learn that "Music 
from Ruckus is subject to Microsoft's digital rights management (DRM) 
system."   So, once again Mac and GNU/Linux users are excluded from 
participating in the service.

I rationalized "Well, Windows users are the biggest group of computer 
users on campus, whaddayagonnado?"

What really surprised me was when I read this, which effectively spells 
out what the statement quoted above actually means: "the service does 
not work with Mac OS or Linux computers or iPods"

I was thinking "does not work with Mac OS (typical), or Linux (typical), 
or iPods (WTF!?!)"

Why would the University "partner" with a music service that doesn't 
support the SINGLE MOST POPULAR music player in the known universe?  I 
don't have a portable music device, of any kind, (especially an iPod), 
but that does not make sense! 

Cue the "Chewbacca Defense" clip...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chewbacca_defense

So, Free Software users,  is there a DRM-free online music service you 
prefer?  Most of my collection came from hundreds of CDs piled up in my 
office at home, but occasionally I'd like to be able to pop online and 
quickly find and download (preferably legally) a DRM-free song or two.  
What are our options?  Has anyone tried the new Amazon service?


--
Mitch Wiedemann
Ithaca Free Software Association http://ithacafreesoftware.org 
Free Software Foundation Member #3167 http://www.fsf.org