Google is making a big push to get colleges and universities to take their various Google Apps for Education

For “free”, of course.  And we all know who the product is on a “free” Google app, right?

The product is you.

These education apps appear to link the user to Google’s entire suite of products, including YouTube.  And of course as soon as you leave the education environment and go to say YouTube, what happens to the privacy policy and terms of use?  It grows up to the same privacy policy that applies to everyone inside or outside of the Education environment.  And in the case of Google’s case study clients, the New York State K-12 Schools, the Maine Township High School District and the Edmonton Public Schools (in Edmonton, Canada), that includes grades K-12, not just college-age adults.

And there’s the real story behind the “free” education…

[This post originally appeared in the Huffington Post]

Once a song is distributed to the public with the permission of the owner of the copyright in the song, the U.S. Copyright Act requires songwriters to license songs for reproduction and distribution under a “compulsory license.” This license is typically called a “mechanical license” because it only covers the “mechanical reproduction” of the song and does not, for example, include the right to use the song in a YouTube video or a motion picture, create a mashup or reprint the lyrics of the song.

When the Congress first developed the compulsory mechanical license in 1909, the concern was that “the right to make mechanical reproductions of musical works might become a monopoly controlled by a single company.” This monopoly never came to pass, and given the fragmentation in music licensing in the current environment, is unlikely to ever come about.

In yet another disastrous act of misguided desperation, Pandora announced that they purchased a radio station in Rapid City, South Dakota.  That’s not South San Francisco, it’s South Dakota–1500 miles away.

Why did they buy that station?  To somehow try to bootstrap themselves into the most important thing in their miserable lives–paying songwriters less.  (And artists will be next.)

Pandora has no connection to South Dakota, much less Rapid City–and that’s not why the FCC grants licenses to radio station owners.  But in the world of media concentration perfected by Pandora’s running buddies Clear Channel, buying a radio station in a city you have no connection to for purposes not related to proper use of the public airwaves to benefit the citizens of Rapid City is just business as usual.  Send in the Silicon Valley lawyers with the IPO checkbook to screw the songwriters whatever the cost.

Just…

Last night in London, Google’s head of EU policy Theo Bertram participated in a debate with David Lowery and some others.  You can read MuscAlly’s live blog about it here.

More about this later, but it’s important to note that Mr. Bertram speaking for Google came up with a brilliant idea for how to “white list” bad sites for advertisers:

Bertram said that it’s theoretically possible to have a dynamic list of the 500 top piracy sites, for use by brands when stipulating where their ads should appear – or for legal purposes.

“It’s not Google’s job to go around the web to declare whether sites are legal or illegal [false premise, no one asked them to do that], but if Coca-Cola comes to us and says here’s a list of 500 dynamic sites, and we don’t want you to place ads on those… that’s a slightly different…

We heard a new twist on the Copyright Principles Project–because the participants are academics, they are not “self interested” the way that creators are.  Ah, disinterested elites on a quest for truth that only the anointed can divine.

Although this point of view is common to academics (who frequently seem to think that their views are superior to everyone else’s–as any law student can attest), allow this non acolyte to diverge from the path to an “A” (or other form of approval, such as a nice fresh fish so appreciated by trained seals) and express a contrary view at the risk of getting an “F”.

First off, the Copyright Principles Project is not entirely made up of people who don’t know each other and is also not entirely made up of academics.  Some corporate types are represented–just not one soul from the photography business, playwrights, visual artists, or anyone from…