According to a source close to the negotiations, the earliest that the campus-wide music agreement with Ruckus could be implemented seems to now be next week. At the same time, however, it could also be later, as there could be more changes to the contract and the whole music service experiment still seems to be up in the air.

Kolb explained why the process is taking time. He said that file sharing and perhaps obtaining a music service “is a complex issue; there is no silver bullet to an issue which is legal, ethical, educational, and technical.”

Last Thursday, the Recording Industry Association of America announced a new round of copyright infringement lawsuits against 757 individuals who allegedly illegally shared copyrighted music files—three of which are targeted at people using RPI IP addresses. Of the suits, 64 were aimed at Internet2 and i2hub users at 17 college campuses, according to The Associated Press.

Including these latest suits, there are now potentially 35 students who have been sued by recording and movie companies in these “John Doe” lawsuits. Most of the earlier suits have now been settled and as such, the defendants shall not be identified in court. RPI has not been pursuing Institute judicial action against people identified in the suits and Kolb said there is “no discussion at this point to change any of” the related policies. He added, “We expect people to be responsible.”

Kolb said he applauds the Senate and all the student initiative that this campus-wide music campaign has had. All of the student-led campaigning persuaded him to become a proponent of a service such as Ruckus because it showed him how important something like this is and would be to the campus and student body.

Regardless of how important the administration views this service, there are still “issues” and “negotiations” holding up the contract process. Some concerns are over the type of digital rights management, and in particular, the fact that the service would only allow music to be listened to freely from the computer and not transferred to iPods and MP3 players, to give some examples. One issue already resolved was going from only offering the service to students on campus to changing the contract to include 3,000 people both on and off campus as long as they use the RPI network.

In the long process for a campus-wide music service, the administration has looked into other schools and their campus music agreements. Syracuse University and the University of Southern California are among Ruckus’ newest users and Penn State had made headlines many months ago for being among the first to sign a campus agreement with Napster.

The Student Senate, under Grand Marshal Max Yates ’06, has been pushing for this agreement since last April. Yates said, “I’m starting to get frustrated with the process. We’ve watched another round of lawsuits hit us even after all the work the Student Senate has done to bring a legal alternative to this campus.”

Yates added, “We’ll never know if the latest suits would have been filed had Ruckus been up and running. We are faced with a new student life paradigm that involves a culture of digital music and eventually we have to address it. We will continue to work with the administration to get a contract signed as soon as possible.” While Yates was fearful that the Campus Action Network might withdraw its $50,000 sponsorship, Kolb said he was not aware of any upcoming deadline they had to meet to use this money.

Jenni Engebretsen, a spokesperson for the RIAA, would not comment on whether the latest three suits are the last lawsuits for a few months or if there are more upcoming in the near future. She also did not specifically address if these suits would have been filed had the contract with Ruckus already been in place, stating via e-mail, “It should go without saying that the availability of a legal service decreases the likelihood that students may be drawn to illegal pirate networks, where they could be sued for copyright theft by the music industry.”

When asked if any of the lawsuits had been filed against students at campuses where there is a campus-wide music service already in place, Engebretsen said she did not have that information readily available and was not able to provide it at press time.

Many students themselves feel that the process is taking long. Valerie Shank ’09 said, “I think that it’s a shame the agreement couldn’t be reached sooner. It sounds like a really good idea because it will save students money and legal troubles associated with downloading. The longer this process drags on, the less productive and meaningful the service will be.” Grace Tangney ’09 added, “I’ll enjoy downloading music in 2008 when this service finally gets put in place.”

Not all students, however, have had their hopes up too high. James Maravalli ’09 explained, “I didn’t expect much to come from this proposed music agreement anyway, just because things from my experience take too long and end up not happening. There’s no use in getting our hopes up; if it does actually happen it would be an added bonus.”