As a Kansas municipality takes on streaming services, such as Netflix and Hulu, in court, lawmakers are considering a bill that would exempt the media giants from paying fees that cable companies are required to cough up. In Kansas, statute requires “competitive video service providers” and other utilities to pay up to 5% of their revenues in a given city to the local government. Because cable providers use infrastructure supported by local tax dollars, the logic is the payments are to help compensate local governments. Senate Bill 144 comes amid a lawsuit from Fort Scott, alleging that the now ubiquitous streaming services are short-changing Kansas municipalities by not paying those franchise fees.
Source: CJonline
