This seems like a money-grab from a municipality. As people engage in cord-cutting behavior, the municipality can't excise it's tax from the cable companies (people who dig cables). So they are looking to make up for the shortfall by going after Netflix and Hulu.

Honestly I think everyone involved is making good points and I don’t think it’s as obvious as Netlifx / Hulu want it to be. I think Comcast would get exactly nowhere arguing they shouldn’t have to pay the 5% fee if they switched their cable boxes to be “streaming boxes” that went over the internet and separated out the internet and content departments. And there becomes a point where all that digging is there to support a few supermassive video streaming services. And the last mile ISPs get put in a “we get charged because we have to dig but we only have to dig because of these streaming services.”

If you don’t think this tax should be levied at all then that’s all fine and dandy but given the tax I think Ohio has a much stronger case than “obviously wrong, dismissed.”

> It would be absurd to call Netflix and Hulu video service providers and could have extreme consequences, Garre said.

> “It would mean that anyone who streams content over the internet – whether it’s a high school that streams educational programs or athletic events or a church that may stream programs or this court itself, which is streaming this argument live today – would be a video service provider under the act, potentially subject to the franchising fee requirements,” Garre said.

It seems the solution is to create or increase the franchise fees on ISPs that use municipal infrastructure.