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Monday, Dec. 22, 2025
The Daily Pennsylvanian

For missed TV shows, Ruckus has it covered

TV, movies to be free for Penn students; music service opens up to anyone with '.edu' e-mail

Dr. McDreamy is only a click away.

And with him are all three seasons of Grey's Anatomy - along with enough TV shows and movies to fill your entire Saturday night.

Ruckus, the free online music-downloading program, will soon allow registered users, such as Penn students, to view television shows and movies, in addition to songs, for free later this year.

But current registered users will no longer be the only ones with access to Ruckus's 2.1 million tracks.

Ruckus announced earlier this week that its song library will now be free to any student who has a valid ".edu" e-mail address, not just those at universities that are signed up for the service.

Still, the TV and movie features will only be free to students at schools that subscribe to Ruckus; others will have to pay for them, much like Ruckus's 5,977 current student users are currently required to.

And while Ruckus - which the Undergraduate Assembly brought to Penn in October - will still be primarily geared toward students, alumni and professors with ".edu" e-mail addresses will now also get access to the downloading service for $8.95 a month.

Ruckus spokesman Andrew Soucy pointed to other unique benefits that students at schools already registered with Ruckus, like Penn, will still enjoy, including faster download speeds.

The UA will not have to change its contract with Ruckus due to the service's expansion, he added.

UA Vice Chairman of External Affairs and College junior Jason Karsh said he did not know the exact date when the newly free TV shows and movies would become free.

This new feature don't imply that users - which comprise barely half of the undergraduate student body - expect to use it more once the free bonuses become available.

"It doesn't make much of a difference," College freshman Haley Samsi said of the upcoming additions.

Samsi pointed to other services, like Alluc.org, that already offer the same features free of charge.

Karsh remains hopeful that the additions will "change the dynamic" of Ruckus, perhaps even increasing student use - but some seem too fed up with the service to care.

"My sentiment toward Ruckus has actually gotten worse," Engineering and Wharton sophomore Jonathan Coveney said.

"If you want anything from a niche genre at all, anything that's not 'SexyBack,' it's not there," he said of Ruckus's music selection

Coveney is part of the Facebook.com group "Dear UA, Ruckus sucks, Try again," which had 22 members as of last night.

In the meantime, regardless of what these technological updates will do for Ruckus's roughly four-month-old Penn career, some students say they enjoy it nonetheless.

"It's an easy way to get free music," Samsi said.