Reality Check
Online "un-authorized" exchange of TV programs is already happening in the U.S. Many viewers who have missed an episode of their favorite programs are downloading them. With some help from file-sharing sites like Kazaa, eDonkey, TVTorrents.com, Bucktv.net along with file-sharing guides like Zeropaid.com.

Not surprisingly, most popular TV program episodes are available at one (or more!) of the file-sharing sites listed above. TV program downloading seems to have become a serious activity. And increasing Internet bandwidths is only making it easier to download the large TV content files.

And while film & TV companies may dread the prospect of content being passed around by viewers over a network connected by set-top boxes, for TV fans this is like a dream come true !

Result? Following on the heels of the music industry, high definition TV may signal the "Napsterization" of TV. And as the music industry has found, Napsterization is very hard to suppress, leave alone reverse!

Project "Share It!"
(An European Community funded project on Content Sharing)
Star Group company NDS along with BBC, Philips and others have been involved in this EC funded project for the past 12 months. The objective is to analyze issues raised by content sharing and develop an end-to-end system that enables easy and convenient access & transfer of broadcast content in an environment of DRM (digital rights management).

This project has identified the following so far :

Technology
• The technology for transfer must be standardized.
• The technology must inform each set-top box (or PC) whether content received is legitimate.

Content Transfer (2 approaches)
• Light touch approach: this is the direct transfer of content between two peers on the network.
• Heavy touch approach: this is the transfer of content via third-party rights brokers (where the rights issues are more complex).

Anti-piracy Strategies
There are 2 complementary strategies to fight the threat of illicit content transfer:
• Step up "chase & prosecute" activities on those involved in the unauthorized distribution of content.
• Limit the opportunities for the pirates to gain a market by lowering the price barrier to encourage legitimate users.

The TiVoToGo Service
(Store & Transfer TV Programs via the Pay TV Network)
The pioneer in PVRs has announced a service called TivoToGo, that will allow users to send recorded TV shows across the Internet to PCs & other TiVo machines.TiVo has even obtained approvals from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for the TiVoToGo service - despite stiff opposition from Hollywood.

But since the FCC has insisted on a host of copy-protection mechanisms that many viewers will find tedious, the TiVoGo service is unlikely to become popular in its current avatar.

Sharing is Inevitable
One lesson learnt from the music industry is that the fear of piracy should not be a reason to avoid the inevitable content-sharing route. Why inevitable? Because the new generation set-top boxes will permit storage of TV content. And as these boxes become connected (via the pay-TV network), sharing is the next logical step !

In short, the physical transfer of content is possible because viewers' set-top boxes will have hard-disk storage (a.k.a. personal video recorders or PVRs), which will be connected via a network.

There are some good uses of peer-to-peer sharing. For example, the problem of guiding viewers to content is one which peer-to-peer sharing can solve. Viewers tend to get lost in the jungle of numerous channels & multiple choice. And electronic program guides (EPGs) are quite cumbersome, confusing and have far too much information. So peer-to-peer sharing technology could be designed to include "recommendation to view" along with physical transfer of content.

Foresight
The key issue is not peer-to-peer sharing. Nor is it storage of content. The issue is to ensure that any transfer of copyright-protected content takes place in a legitimate manner, so that if a pay-per-view program is sent from one viewer to another, the receiver has to pay in order to access the content.

Peer-to-peer content sharing by the way, may not be restricted to transfer of television content. It also enables viewers to exchange home videos, video messages and other forms of self-generated content using the pay TV network.

Finally, the television industry can learn from the recorded music industry by building an official market for peer-to-peer television. Instead of avoiding the inevitable.