One of the best things I get to do today is some paid brainstorming on the future of content-on-demand and PVR systems. The question is how to construct an evolvable combination of online services and home-resident devices, balancing the wants of users with the need to protect the IP of content providers (and make the box/service provider profitable). Should be fun.
My initial thinking involves metadata tagging of all content passing through the system. If we can keep track of every read/write done for a user, we can do something about it - get payment, create a summary report, even destroy the content from a distance. This intersects big time with the RIAA and DCMA debates, debates in which I come down mostly on the users' side, so getting the scheme right is fundamental. Cryptography also has a place here. The author's content (content for a price) should be kept secret until some assurance of identity and payment are given.
The argument against most of these tagging/management schemes for IP protection is that they can be hacked. I've got news - almost anything, perhaps exactly anything, can be hacked. The trick is to set the bar so high, and keep resetting it, that it's just not worth anyone's time. So what if a dozen ubergeeks get some free movies in version 1.6 of the system - we can reset the protection for version 1.7, and said ubergeeks will have to try again. Meanwhile, 99.999% of the world just wants something that works and isn't too onerous or overt in its protection schemes.
7:09:33 AM 
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