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Cities Sue Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Claim They Owe Cable "Franchise Fees"

posted by Fnord666 on Friday August 21 2020, @09:40AM   
from the declining-revenues dept.

Freeman writes:

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.

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Original Submission

• Re:Interesting problem (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 21 2020, @03:53PM

  by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 21 2020, @03:53PM (#1039940)

  It doesn't really matter if Netflix is a video service under the definition or not, because the fee was already paid by the ISP.

  The analogy would be going to the cable company for the fee, and then getting a list of the channels they carry, and then going to them and trying to collect the fee again.

  Parent

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