The collapse of Ruckus has left the Undergraduate Assembly searching for a new way to legally distribute music on campus.
Choruss, a new blanket licensing system that bills universities based on the amount of music students download and distributes the money to content owners, could potentially make that goal happen.
According to a recent article in Wired, Warner Music Group is financing Choruss while Educause, a nonprofit association that promotes the intelligent use of information technology, is presenting the project to universities across the country including Columbia, Cornell and Stanford universities.
Three of the four major record labels have already signed on with the project, Wired also reported.
According to Educause's Web site, Choruss allows students to access and use music in any way they desire while generating fair returns to content owners.
The site said institutions would collect the money from students as determined by the campus, and a nonprofit organization would distribute the money proportionately to content owners.
The UA is in the process of looking for a new music service for Penn students to use, said UA member and College junior Lucia Liu, who is in charge of the search.
She said she has contacted Sony, but that Sony was unwilling to provide any services.
"Currently there are no music providers who are willing to have this kind of free service for students, considering Ruckus' business model isn't working," Liu added.
Ruckus, an online music service promoted as a legal alternative to music piracy, shut down unexpectedly in February.
The closure of the service came on the heels of the Recording Industry Association of America's decision last December to stop filing lawsuits against individuals for file-sharing.
According to Susan Herron, director of the Office of Student Conduct, it is against the law and against University policy to illegally download music, and the RIAA still notifies the University when they learn of a copyright violation.
"The UA's initiative right now is to look and see what kinds of programs are offered, put them in a list and send out a survey to see what students want," Liu said.
But Liu said she is concerned that this plan would result in universities collecting these funds through tuition payments.
"We don't really know how interested students are in Choruss considering they could be paying through their tuition," Liu said. "I don't know if that's the best use of their tuition money."
Engineering freshman Rahul Prabhu said he believes there are better ways for universities to handle music downloading.
"Students should not be sharing the costs of everyone's downloading," Prabhu said. "They should make it optional for students to add this to their bill."
