As reported by Appleinsider, a recent filing with the USPTO describes a service that will allow iPhone customers to access their content OTA remotely. This means as a consumer, i have virtually unlimited storage on my iPhone.

Quite naturally this upsets many content distribution guys who aren't really happy to see such a disruptive nature of content distribution. Content is a highly collaborative business. What will be interesting to see is that if the filing get approved, how many lawyers Apple will need to hire to fight off the thousands of legal issues this model brings along with it.

However, there is an aspect of this equation that forms part of this 'lobby'. OTA relies on the carriers. They would want a share of this pie. Imagine if Apple charges $10 per user per month for this service. However, the same stem has another thorn - Carriers haven't really cared about content piracy or losses due to open content distribution. But now with heavy bandwidth requirement for this service - they would want to make sure content is protected and legit.

Apple has developed an excellent content delivery platform called iPhone. They have been insistent across all their marketing that its the best iPod yet and has crystal clear video. So now that they have the platform, the next stage is obviously driving the content. iPods did not have OTA. But iPhone does.

However, since Apple is not in the content business, iTunes' supremacy relies on third party content providers. The circle completes here. As a content provider to Apple, I would not want to rely only on Apple to sell my content. The lobby is a strong deterrent for me to agree to even distribute content through iTunes.

So if iTunes dies, where does apple get the content it wants to distribute through the newly filed technology?