This Newsweek article hits on the exact issues we’ve been talking about. Specifically:
While the New TV motto is “Anything you want, any time, on any device,” these initial forays come with more caveats than a Trump prenup. Through Google’s new video-download service announced last Friday, CBS sells the Las Vegas version of “CSI” for $1.99 but not the Miami and New York versions. Lots of content is available only on one service “Welcome Back, Kotter” fans must use AOL’s In2TV. As for the “any time” vow, it turns out that some services, like Vongo (the online version of the Starz premium cable movie channel), puts an expiration date on films you download, as if they were milk cartons. Once the date arrives, the movies vanish from your hard drive. Also, the “on any device” promise needs a bit of work. When you buy a TV show from iTunes, it works on the video iPod. Buy it anywhere else, it probably doesn’t. Google lets anyone sell videos on its service, and leaves it up to the producer to decide whether to lock down the content and limit where you can play, and also how much and whether to charge money. “Charlie Rose” episodes are streamed free on the day after they’re on the air, and downloadable for a buck afterward. But they aren’t copy-protected and can be played on iPods. NBA games, however, cost $3.95 and don’t work on iPods.
If this is ever going to catch on someone really needs to sort all of this out.