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This is absolute insanity and stands little hope of winning in court, or appeal. From the article:
Four cities in Indiana are suing Netflix and other video companies, claiming that online video providers and satellite-TV operators should have to pay the same franchise fees that cable companies pay for using local rights of way.
The lawsuit was filed against Netflix, Disney, Hulu, DirecTV, and Dish Network on August 4 in Indiana Commercial Court in Marion County. The cities of Indianapolis, Evansville, Valparaiso, and Fishers want the companies to pay the cable-franchise fees established in Indiana's Video Service Franchises (VSF) Act, which requires payments of 5 percent of gross revenue in each city.
Ignoring DirecTV, whose parent, AT&T, is hemorrhaging money on that purchase, they're stupid enough to sue DISNEY?! And note one name conspicuously absent: Amazon. Their Prime TV service uses the same cables. Again, Amazon has huge amounts of money - as do all of these defendants - to represent themselves in court. Probably more than the cities do. This is also extremely bad precedent because if they somehow win, then they've just destroyed the internet because every municipality can charge franchise fees: no more YouTube, taxes on everything at every level.
Internet services already pay connection fees to be carried over ISP services. Those fees are already paid in to city coffers. They do not add to infrastructure load. The cities are trying to double-dip. I understand and appreciate that cities are under tremendous financial burden, especially under these plague times: I've worked in city/state government almost my entire working life. But this is a monumentally stupid idea that is going to go down in flames.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/08/cities-sue-netflix-hulu-disney-claim-they-owe-cable-franchise-fees/
Four cities in Indiana are suing Netflix and other video companies, claiming that online video providers and satellite-TV operators should have to pay the same franchise fees that cable companies pay for using local rights of way.
The lawsuit was filed against Netflix, Disney, Hulu, DirecTV, and Dish Network on August 4 in Indiana Commercial Court in Marion County. The cities of Indianapolis, Evansville, Valparaiso, and Fishers want the companies to pay the cable-franchise fees established in Indiana's Video Service Franchises (VSF) Act, which requires payments of 5 percent of gross revenue in each city.
Ignoring DirecTV, whose parent, AT&T, is hemorrhaging money on that purchase, they're stupid enough to sue DISNEY?! And note one name conspicuously absent: Amazon. Their Prime TV service uses the same cables. Again, Amazon has huge amounts of money - as do all of these defendants - to represent themselves in court. Probably more than the cities do. This is also extremely bad precedent because if they somehow win, then they've just destroyed the internet because every municipality can charge franchise fees: no more YouTube, taxes on everything at every level.
Internet services already pay connection fees to be carried over ISP services. Those fees are already paid in to city coffers. They do not add to infrastructure load. The cities are trying to double-dip. I understand and appreciate that cities are under tremendous financial burden, especially under these plague times: I've worked in city/state government almost my entire working life. But this is a monumentally stupid idea that is going to go down in flames.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/08/cities-sue-netflix-hulu-disney-claim-they-owe-cable-franchise-fees/
