I’ve been writing the last few days about the Hobson’s choice faced by TV networks and other content providers: either cannibalize the revenue from your TV programs  by airing them with less profitable ads on the Web; or keep them on TV — and watch users copy them and post them for free on the Web.

At the 11th Annual Milken Institute Global Conference on Monday, I’ll have a chance to flesh out the paradox on a panel with Eric Feng, Senior Vice President of Audience and Chief Technical Officer, Hulu.com; Albhy Galuten, Vice President, Digital Media Technology Strategy, Sony Corporation of America; Andres Jordan, Vice President, Innovation, T-Systems (Deutsche Telekom North America); and Gene Meieran, Senior Fellow, Technology and Manufacturing Group, Intel.

Hulu.com – NBC Universal and Fox’s joint venture that offers full-length episodes from more than 50 broadcast networks and more than 250 TV series, from The Simpsons to Miami Vice – has clearly decided a good offense is better than a play-scared defense (a la record labels). 

Sony’s Albhy Galuten –probably the only Grammy-winning songwriter who’s equally at home in high technology – knows better than most the trade-offs content creators must consider to survive in the digital age.

You can sum it up as surfing: put out enough free content to make sure you have a stake in whatever business model comes down the pike; but not so much that you destroy your core business.

A suitable analogy for a Southern California conference.

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