Software that allows the unrestricted use of music downloaded through a subscription service Ohio University signed a contract with less than a month ago has been available for more than a year.

Ruckus, based in Herndon, Va., sells advertising on its Web site and media player to support its business model: giving free music to anyone with a university e-mail address.

The company also uses Microsoft’s digital rights management software, or DRM, to disallow users from playing the music on portable music players including Apple Inc.’s iPod and Microsoft’s Zune, burning the files to CDs or playing them for more than a month outside Ruckus’ media player. Computers that don’t run the Windows operating system can’t run Ruckus because it uses Microsoft’s proprietary DRM.

None of that has mattered, though, for more than a year — to those willing to break copyright law.

An anonymous programmer posted software that strips the DRM from Windows media files on a well-known Internet bulletin board in July 2006. A member registered under the username “Viodentia” posted the program, FairUse4WM, which allows the files to be copied, transferred and converted to other formats.

At the time, Viodentia asked that users only strip DRM from files that they owned and not to “abuse rental license.” Although the file has been removed from the servers of several free file-hosting companies, it is still available elsewhere on the Internet.

Ruckus’ DRM allows students to borrow music like they would a movie, said Chris Lawson, director of corporate development at Ruckus, adding that without DRM, Ruckus wouldn’t be able to make the music available for free.

Ruckus’ contracts with record labels require it to use DRM and those labels are comfortable with Microsoft’s current software, Lawson said.

“I think that DRM is kind of changing so that it will be less restrictive and people will feel less need to crack it,” Lawson said, adding that there are major differences between the subscription model used by Ruckus and Internet music vendors like iTunes that require different DRM software.

The university signed a one-year contract with Ruckus Aug. 14. Ruckus will move several servers onto the campus network to improve download speeds. No money changed hands.

Weber Shandwick, a public relations firm retained by Microsoft, was not able to make company representatives available for comment before this article went to press.