Legal music sharing site Ruckus.com has closed up shop abruptly. No doubt, the few folks who used the service are left with the balance of their 1 month lease on their music before it attempts to contact their licensing server for renewal.
The idea of the service was to allow college students a legal way to download and share music amongst themselves. Revenue was generated by advertising on the Ruckus site, where the music was downloaded, along with a social component that honestly seemed lacking to me.
The biggest flaw was that when you graduated, your music would suddenly become unplayable unless you subscribed to their pay service. So, you’re given four years to amass a large collection of music to only have it suddenly be taken hostage.
Services like Amazon’s MP3 service make much more sense in my opinion.