The Supreme Court Thinks You're Better Off Paying $150/Month for Cable

[Armstead]

13. You have to seperate OTA brofcasting from private distribition channels

It's a matter of corporate greed versus the public interest.

I know that having a public information infrastructure to serve the public interest is a quaint notion these days -- but the broadcasters have their license because the broadcast spectrum is a limited commodity. The way it was set up (rightly or wrongly) was that they would have a license to use that public resource to make money, but they also had certain obligations to serve the public.Broadcasters did quite well financially on that basis.

That is different than the Internet, which has larger capacity, or private distribution systems for cable channels.

Therefore, the right to pick up and retransmit over the air signals shouldn't;t be subject to additional fees and "retransmission" rights just so cable companies and broadcasters can squeeze more dollars out of their use of a public resource.