The networks, and for that matter the whole "content" industry, has a pretty cozy business model that has evolved in bits and spurts over the past century. Every once in a while, a "disruptive" technology (first albums, then radio, then TV, then VCRs, and now the Internet/MP3 thing) comes along and changes the rules. They always fight it, and they always end up giving up and making more money in the end. What really scares them, this time around, is the ability for consumers to make "perfect" copies. You couldn't do that before. That means that consumers can create their own content distribution networks, as it were, and that really upsets these folks. Never mind that there's still plenty of opportunity to make money off of this.

For example, if I want to "send" a show from my ReplayTV to yours over my DSL connection (128k upstream, 1.5M downstream), and assuming you've got a similar connection, it's not going to be very fast. If the video is five megabits in real time, then you're talking about a factor of 40 slowdown (limited by the 128k link). Sending you a one hour show will take almost two days! But, maybe I could download a show from an officially sanctioned web site, and then I get to download it at the full 1.5Mbits, giving me a one hour show in about four hours. You could send it during the day, when I'm not home, or at night when I'm asleep, and I'd probably pay for the service.

Move this up to high-definition video, and the disparity becomes even more pronounced. Give me a hi-def TiVo or ReplayTV with a fast, centralized download service, and I'll be all over it.