In addition to the library of more than two million songs, Ruckus boasts a social network, music videos, feature films, music videos and sports clips, features that Napster does not provide, Rushton said.
Ruckus marketing representative Andrew Soucy said that several other colleges nationwide have contracts with Ruckus, including Duke University, University of Massachusetts and North Carolina State University.
Soucy said that Ruckus will not be compatible with Macs or iPods. Like Napster's 99-cent fee, there will be a charge to burn songs to a disc, but it will cost no more than 99 cents. Soucy said he is unsure of costs associated with video burning.
Rushton said Penn State decided that a new digital entertainment service would better serve the needs of students.
"It had come time for Penn State to review what options were out there for digital music services, and we looked into a number of them and decided in recent months that Ruckus looked like a good opportunity and something that was very suited for the college market," Rushton said.
Representatives from Napster could not be reached by press time yesterday.
"It is very suited to the college market and has stuff that college-aged students will be very interested in," Rushton said. "Since Ruckus' model is benefited by having a school like Penn State on board with them, it's not really costing Penn State anything too significant, and that in turn allows us to use those funds ... [for] some very student-oriented multimedia services that will be available across the commonwealth and with some technology security advances that we're working on."
Haldeman said he and his committee began contacting Ruckus last fall.
"It's been an ongoing effort of ours to always offer the best service to our students," he said. "For a long time that was Napster, but we just recognized from student feedback that there was some stuff Napster didn't have."
Haldeman said students can begin signing up for Ruckus now, but he advised that students living in residence halls wait because of the excess in bandwidth Ruckus would cause at this stage.
"We're officially supporting the service beginning next fall, but students can register now or over the summer," he said. "Users know they can sign up the first day of fall classes for sure in the dorms. If they have a connection where they're not worried about exceeding the dorm's bandwidth, they can sign up for it now."
He added students can access Ruckus over the summer, even if they are away from Penn State, unlike in the past with Napster. Students living off campus are privy to the service as well.
Some students said they are slightly skeptical of the new, unfamiliar software, but added they are open to the change.
"I've never used Ruckus, but I have friends at other schools who seem to like it," Sara Nash (freshman-public relations) said. "It's supposed to be popular for movies and video clips, though, and that isn't a selling point for me."
Other students who said they are more suited to Napster seem to be hoping the change won't just be a headache.
"My concern is if my songs transfer from Napster," Emily Loyco (freshman-secondary education) said. "I use Napster all the time, and I have so many songs I don't want to have to re-download."
