Oh man, that would be awesome. But then the cable companies will fight it. Maybe they could compromise on some rule that says they have to provide a decryption card of some kind for "universal" access to video streams. Some sort of cable...card. That would solve all the problems.
This means that someone could release an Android TV box with support for streaming live cable TV to the live channels app and maybe a DVR. SiliconDust is already doing this with their tuners but I imagine we could see more companies do this. It's great!