You’ve probably heard or read the news. It hit the wires early last week at the same time Apple’s representatives started to contact universities and colleges to talk about a very enticing offer from the Wonderful Wizard of Podz: iTunes U.
Brown, Duke, and Stanford Universities; the University of Michigan School of Dentistry, at Ann Arbor; the University of Missouri School of Journalism, at Columbia; and the University of Wisconsin at Madison have been testing this service for a while.
As stated on the dedidacted solution page on Apple’s website, “iTunes U is a free, hosted service for colleges and universities that provides easy access to your educational content, including lectures and interviews 24 hours a day, 7 days a week”
Free hosted service for podcasts? Sounds pretty cool, so what’s the catch?
Probably somewhere in these lines from the same solution web page:
“In addition to providing a great conduit for digital academic content, iTunes is also the largest source of legal digital music available online. So students can buy and download music that has both educational and entertainment value, with all copyrights honored and the full support of the music industry.”
Basically, Apple wants higher ed institutions to send their students download the latest podcasts of their courses at iTunes U, so they can stop by the Music Store to buy a song or two.
Note also the mention of copyrights, which should definitely be music to the ears of any higher ed executive concerned by the file sharing occurring on his/her campus.
The fine print of this offer also seems to indicate some strings attached:
“Terms and conditions apply. Universities must enter into an iTunes U Service Agreement before being eligible to use the iTunes U service. Apple reserves the right to determine eligibility.”
Nothing that doesn’t make sense though: Apple is a business and there’s no such thing as a free lunch.