Student officials at UW-Stevens Point say college students and easy access to illegal music download sites can be a recipe for piracy.
"I'd say college students don't have a lot of money to spend on music”, said Student Goverment Association President Justin Glodowski. “But music is popular for college students so any way they can get a hold of it they get a hold of it."

Last year, he says a few students were prosecuted by the music industry for illegally downloading and sharing music, and so the University is looking at a legal alternative called ‘Ruckus’.
Glodowski says Ruckus is a music downloading service that lets anyone with a .edu email address to stream music for free. And those tracks can also be downloaded for ipods or mp3 players for as little as $15 per semester.
The service is accessible for any college student, but the University I.T. department says it will soon add its own server that would provide faster, on-campus access.

Some students on campus have already been using the service, and give it rave reviews. "It's very easy to use, it's incredible, it's fast”, said sophomore Amanda Meyer. “I have all kinds of stuff I haven't seen since, well Napster."

The site has users download a player that shows ads to support the free music. But students say viewing ads is worth it, and they believe the service will make a difference. "I think it's going to help a lot with decreasing piracy and yeah, it's definitely going to fill a void”, said Meyer.

The University is hoping to have at least 3000 students subscribe to the service before they put in their own server. They say they already have about 2500.