I'm most assuredly not in a position to disagree with Justice Lavin in this one, as literally everything I know about the "Digital Infrastructure and Video Competition Act of 2006 (Pub. Util. Code, § 5810 et seq.)" is contained in today's opinion. Moreover, everything that he said in his opinion sounded entirely plausible, so I can't really say with any confidence that individual cities should have the ability to sue video providers for not getting a state franchise and paying the applicable fees. (The Court of Appeal holds they can't.)
The one thing I can say, however, is that it seems to me like the state Public Utilities Commission should darn sure take a position on this stuff. If cable companies have to pay for using public right of ways for their transmission stuff (e.g., their cables), then it only makes sense (to me) that streaming services like Netflix and the like should have to pay as well. It sounds to me -- again, knowing virtually nothing -- like the streaming services don't pay but cable companies do, despite the fact that both of them use fiber optic cables (or non-fiber optic cables) running under our streets, etc. Doesn't seem fair or equitable. If both use public resources, both should pay.
So it's entirely possible that the Court of Appeal is correct that the statute only says that cities can sue if a franchisee doesn't pay, whereas here, Netflix isn't a franchisee in the first place, so can't be sued even if it doesn't pay.
But the PUC can definitely sue. And if the facts are as they appear to be in the opinion, I'm seriously wondering why the PUC hasn't.
But, again, it's entirely possible I'm missing something here.
Which, on rare occasion, happens.
