Content Sharing

One of the earliest rules small children are taught is to share. It is one of our greatest instincts and people are measured by their generosity and willingness to share. Our audience already has the means to create and share their creations. A digital camera for 100UKP today allows the budding video artist to create their own works trivially - given talent or determination.

> Darknet

Our audience is choosing to share their work online. They will expect to be able to share works they create, derived from our content, online as well. Some will be willing to share their results with us as well as with each other.

Currently the mechanisms used for sharing are either slow or inappropriate - such as websites. They are driven underground due to legal fights over technology - an arms race simply evolving stronger, more capable P2P systems.

Despite being often used in clearly illegal ways, P2P is inherently a legal sharing system and is becoming more stable. It's usage by the general population for sharing is likely grow beyond its already unprecedented levels. Growth of legal founded P2P systems provides opportunities for the industry, and the public.

Lawful use of P2P will lead people to changed expectations. People will expect to use content they have purchased in much the same way as they use content they produce. Placing content in locked envelopes, may to lead to the audience find means of opening it, and then using it as they wanted to - or they may just go elsewhere.

The resulting scenario will be that people will expect high quality content to continue to be created and made available by the BBC supplementing BBC content. New forms of culture may spring up, perhaps back to simpler but richer story telling.

Challenge: Provide systems, acceptable to this mature audience. Systems that foster this culture, but ensuring that people are still paid for producing content, whilst recognising that the audience will create a lot of content themselves.