How can a legal music library lure colleges that aren’t thrilled about subsidizing their students’ downloading habits? Companies like Ruckus and Cdigix have tried to solve that conundrum by offering colleges a choice between campuswide site licenses and cheaper "opt-in" models — which let students decide whether they’re willing to pay about $3 a month for legal downloads.
The opt-in models may tempt campus officials, but the evidence suggests that they don’t work: A college can consider itself lucky if it gets one in five students to sign up for a legal service on his or her own.
So Ruckus is abandoning the opt-in strategy in favor of a new idea: free music for all campus users. The company is waiving the monthly fee for its music service, hoping instead to make money by increasing ad sales and expanding the base of users who might pay for movie downloads and alumni subscriptions.
Under the new plan, colleges that sign up with Ruckus will be asked to pay only for minor marketing costs, and students won’t have to fork over any cash. "It’s only about as expensive as a cup of coffee," says Bradley M. Vaughn, Ruckus’s vice president for campus sales and relations, "but students don’t want to pay $3 a month without knowing what they’re getting into."
