To your point about the content being unedited (ie commercials intact), I don't think that will quite cut it either. At one point in time, I was able to subscribe to the major networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX) using my DirecTv subscription. I was able to get both East and West Coast feeds. Then a law was passed that required me to get a waiver from my local major network affiliates to be able to continue to get the East and West coast feeds. The local tv stations claimed that they were losing local ad revenue due to satellite customers watching someonelse's local ads instead of their ads. Perhaps that is true. What I'm trying to get at is that even if you don't cut the commercials, someone is still getting screwed (your local Mom & Pop store who's commercial you are not seeing).

Unless you have the rights to the programs that you want to distribute via bittorrent, you are breaking the law. Many people say it should be this way or that way, but only the rights owner has the authority to decide how their content is distributed.

I'm not saying that I like the way things are, but I am saying that downloading shows via torrents is not doing any good at prompting networks to come up with new shows. The facts are that it takes money to produce programming and someone has to pay for it.

Would this not be possible if the files were labled according to location, maybe zip codes in the file name. Wouldnt this allow someone to download the region specific version uncut. I think if it were my money tied up in this shows I would want it as available as possible. The more viewers the more revenue. I think that if these companies were to think outside the box a little you would be able to download the region specific torrent from there site, it would not take much to put in some coding to keep you from copying, or burning it.

I'm not certain, but I don't think the local stations can rebroadcast a network show without the parent network's permission (both on their airwaves and, in your case, on the internet). It all goes back to my point that only the rights holder has the authority to say how a program is distributed.

I am not sure I did the quoting thing right, but what I was going to say was that my dad was watching pro football and during an ad they rattled off this nice long list of things relating to the game you can't do without everyone's permission, and if i am not mistaken I am not even allowed to describe any aspect of the game itself. And it wouldn't surprise me if I am breaking the law in just describing that ad.

I wouldn't ever want anything to compermise the project. But I really do see the future of television being on demand. To bad so many greedy SOBs have to be running this country. Oh, what were you saying about replaytvs being paired?

Wouldn't Slingbox and streaming mythtv over the internet also violate the local broadcast laws?