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An authoritative law review article debunked the canard that only two percent of all rape claims are false -- the author traced this number to its baseless source. See http://llr.lls.edu/volumes/v33-issue3/greer.pdf.

As reported by "False Rape Allegations" by Eugene Kanin, Archives of Sexual Behavior Feb 1994 v23 n1 p81 (12), Professor Kanin’s major study of a mid-size Midwestern U.S. city over the course of nine years found that 41 percent of all rape claims were false. Kanin also studied the police records of two unnamed large state universities, and found that in three years, 50 percent of the 64 rapes reported to campus police were determined to be false, without the use of polygraphs.

In addition, a landmark Air Force study in 1985 studied 556 rape allegations. It found that 27% of the accusers recanted, and an independent evaluation revealed a false accusation rate of 60%. McDowell, Charles P., Ph.D. “False Allegations.” Forensic Science Digest, (publication of the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations), Vol. 11, No. 4 (December 1985), p. 64.

WHY?

You're right - Disney probably lobbied for it to go through - but did you ever think to consider that the REASON they lobbied was because Europe had just declared that they would not respect American copyrights past the terms set by American copyright law, while holding European films to the longer European copyright terms, causing a trade issue with older films, among other things, rather than a need to keep Steamboat Willie in copyright? You see, they actually don't care about Steamboat Willie - Mickey Mouse is protected under trademark law, which doesn't have the same limits, so Disney has very little to lose if it goes into the public domain.

(Source: http://llr.lls.edu/volumes/v36-issue1/martin-original1.pdf )

You may not be blaming the creative artists for working towards that copyright span - instead you're blaming media companies - but your implication is still quite plain - that the reason copyrights last that long is because greedy corporations wanted to deepen their pockets.

Well, guess what - that's wrong. Greedy corporations will always want to deepen their pockets, but this one was a foreign policy and trade matter more than anything else.

(And, by the way, the "Disney lobbying is the cause of the CTEA" happens to be a major part of the Lessig argument regarding this, and his writings are one of the major sources - so yes, he is relevant.)

Accord to Lawrence Lessig, no doubt...

But Lessig lost his case in the Supreme Court on the merits, mainly for bringing a bunch of conspiracy theories about Disney into a court of law, and got it torn apart by lawyers who actually had evidence.

So, no, the CTEA (Copyright Term Extension Act) was not about keeping Steamboat Willie in copyright. It was a foreign policy move to harmonize with Europe, which had moved to life + 70 years and had declared that it would only respect the term in the country of origin. There was a concern that this would cause difficulties with American artists trying to work in Europe.

But, I guess a conspiracy by Disney is more exciting than foreign policy.

(Source: http://llr.lls.edu/volumes/v36-issue1/martin-original1.pdf - pay close attention to the section on Lessig's case - he really did come in making statements that were easily disproved, such as claiming that insufficient time was given for consultation and that librarian concerns weren't even looked at...only to have the several days of consultation brought up in evidence as well as sections addressing the concerns of librarians and giving them special privileges.)

"I still don't see anyone giving any good reason why these monopolies should be granted for such ridiculous amounts of time."

I'm not going to bother arguing with you on that - there are very good arguments out there, from ensuring that the work has a champion to improve its chances of survival to giving creative artists a legacy to leave to their descendants, but you strike me as one of the people here who are too interested in reinforcing their own sense of entitlement to actually listen to anything that contradicts your beliefs.

If I'm wrong about that, and I hope I am, and you are actually wanting to become more informed about the issue, you will want to read this paper published in a peer-reviewed law journal: http://llr.lls.edu/volumes/v36-issue1/martin-original1.pdf

(Ironically, he's writing more about the constitutional issues, but he still covers the arguments you're wanting to learn about quite well.)

"And why was Disney able to create its classics? Because those fairy tales weren't copyrighted, so Disney just did what they wanted with them, with no restrictions or payment needed. That doesn't hold true for practically anything created in the last 70 years or so."

You mean besides a large number of the works by Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft?

You're holding up basic math as the problem here. The term in the United States is now lifetime plus seventy years. Of course a lot of work will fall into that - but not all. Because of the way that copyright in the United States has lagged behind the rest of the world, the actual issue of what is in the public domain is far more complicated. Here is the actual chart that shows copyright terms:

http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/public_domain/

I am going to point out a couple of things. First of all, not all of the work in the last century in the United States receives a term of lifetime + 70 years. In fact, only those works created after 1978 receive that term. For that matter, anything published between 1978 and March 1, 1989 without copyright notice or registration is now in the public domain in the United States.

Additionally, the longest copyright term for anything published from 1923-1977 is, in fact, 95 years from date of publication, and that's only if the copyright was renewed - and according to footnote 8, as of 1961 less than 15% of total works were, and less than 7% of books were. So, far from the whole of culture in the United States from 1923 onwards being locked away behind copyright law, odds are that 85% of cultural works between 1923 and 1963 at the very least are in the public domain right now, and 93% of books published by American authors in that time are now public domain.

So, the idea that nothing has entered the public domain in the last 70 years because of copyright term extensions is blatantly wrong. For that matter, the Sonny Bono extension act stripped a number of works that had previously enjoyed perpetual copyright due to a form of common law of their copyright protection, and placed them in the public domain.

So, before you make any more claims about how culture is being locked away, or how nothing in the last 70 years is entering the public domain, you might really want to do some basic research and get your facts right.

You're twisting things terribly there.

First of all, if Steamboat Willie goes into the public domain, there are still decades of Mickey Mouse cartoons that are under copyright.

Second, if you try to use Mickey Mouse Disney might tack on copyright issues, but the suit they'll hit you with is the trademark suit. Aside from which, how would you use Mickey Mouse, a character so associated with Disney it is next only to the Disney castle, without causing brand confusion?

Believe me, Disney has nothing to fear from Steamboat Willie going out of copyright protection. They DO, however, have something to fear if Europe views the United States as being behind the times on copyright law - that impacts international trade and even their talent base.

And that, by the way, was the reason for the Sonny Bono law. European copyright was the major issue, not Mickey Mouse. Mickey Mouse was the issue that Lawrence Lessig latched onto, but what I've read in what few peer-reviewed law journals regarding the case suggests that Lessig was off his rocker and got defeated due to not arriving in court with a proper case. This article is long, but it is peer-reviewed, and it does cover the case, as well as why Lessig was defeated: http://llr.lls.edu/volumes/v36-issue1/martin-original1.pdf

"Yeah right. Steamboat Willie will never go out of copyright as long as Congress keeps bowing to pressure from Disney. Who do you think is behind all those extensions, anyway?"

Harmonization with European copyright, actually. They went to life +70 first, and declared that they would consider copyrights to last the length of copyright in the original country - to avoid losing 20 years of protection, and to keep American IP competitive in the European market, the United States harmonized.

If you want to learn more about the reasons and process for the 20 year extension, read this: http://llr.lls.edu/volumes/v36-issue1/martin-original1.pdf

Right now, you're sounding like a 9/11 conspiracy theorist. You're taking a possible scenario, and depicting it as an absolute scenario.

And you are very, very wrong.

"Let us not forget one of the more sinister side effects of this: the complete destruction of large parts of our history. In all likelihood 99% of the film and audio ever shot is on rapidly decaying mediums, yet we the public have no rights to preserve it. So if the IP holders let it rot it is just gone."

A big assumption here - you're saying that in all likelihood copyright holders are letting 99% of their work simply rot, rather than championing them. This falls under the "copyright conspiracy to deprive the world of culture" idea, and there's so much wrong with that statement it's hard to figure out where to begin.

First off, in order for a piece of property in copyright to be of any use to the copyright holder, it has to be available to the public. That means that the copyright holder has to preserve it, make certain that it can be archived properly, etc.

Second, while the first point is true, it is also true that the majority of books (I use that as the example, because that's what I know best, but also because frankly there are a lot more writers than musicians or filmmakers) have an active lifespan of around 10 years or less. So, why is that? Put simply, it's because in that time, the public stops caring about the work, making it no longer economical for the publisher to keep publishing it.

Think about that. The public stops caring. The work effectively disappears at that point.

The argument that you're making is that if the copyright term is shortened, then preservation societies and whatnot will be free to take all of these works and reprint them. But that makes the assumption that those works will even cross their radar in the first place. In fact, since there wasn't enough interest to keep those works circulating to begin with, they're NOT going to be saved, with the rare exception of some gem that gets discovered in a vault somewhere.

Here's the reality - the longer a work is in copyright, the longer it has an actual champion who cares whether it survives or not. That raises the odds of survival, not lowers them. If you have a 25 year copyright while the average lifespan of a work is less than 10 years, then the majority of works will still vanish into the ether when they hit the public domain. As I just wrote in another post in this thread, for every book that got saved onto Project Gutenberg, there are dozens that didn't, and that we'll never see again.

"This is about greedy, bloodsucking, multinational corporations that are holding our entire culture hostage, nothing more."

That's the typical rant right there - the greedy, bloodsucking, multinational corporations holding culture hostage. Well, they're also keeping that culture available and in distribution...and making sure that those old films get preserved and remastered for their DVD releases.

Try this on for size - rather than foaming at the mouth about the evil corporations and how copyright is taking away our culture, why don't you actually learn a bit about the law, how it works, and what the impact is. Start with this: http://llr.lls.edu/volumes/v36-issue1/martin-original1.pdf - it's an examination in a peer-reviewed law journal of how the public domain actually works.

"This is about greedy, bloodsucking, multinational corporations that are holding our entire culture hostage, nothing more."

No, it's not. It's about the law, and understanding it. You might want to keep that in mind in the future.

He's getting off too easily anyway, he's taken one life and ruined multiple other lives. Once murder is established, the burden should be on the defendent to prove it wasn't premeditated. Were I a juror, being free of thought, I would vote based on that regardless of the law.

Now this is the sort of article (the original, not the blog entry) that is needed in the copyright debate. It is intelligent, and it raises some interesting questions about how the law works, and how it should work. However, Tehranian does have some issues as far as missing things:

1. He talks about the 1976 Copyright Act, which is a pivotal point for American copyright law, but it would have been nice if he had made reference to the fact that the rest of the Western world, as per the Berne Convention, had those copyright limits already for decades, as well as the fact that the 1976 act only extended works already in copyright by 19 years, and only applied in full to those works created after the law went into effect.

2. He talks about the Copyright Term Extension Act (AKA the Sonny Bono Act) as though it was just snuck through congress without debate, which is not surprising considering his source, which was the other side of the United States vs. Eldred. The thing is, it simply isn't true. Congressional hearings were held on September 20, 1995, with numerous testimonies in regards to the act - three years before the act was enacted. Among the testimonies were librarians concerned with the ability to archive in the face of a copyright extension, with the result that the final act had provisions for archival work 50 years after the death of the author. Tehranian also fails to note that the CTEA was put into place to harmonize with Europe, which was already at lifetime plus seventy years, and had been for some time - the conspiracy theory that it was to save Mickey Mouse holds absolutely no water, as Mickey Mouse is protected by trademark law, not copyright.

As a counterpoint to this article, I would offer "The Mythology of the Public Domain," by Scott M. Martin, which discusses the other side of these issues and was published in a peer-reviewed journal: http://llr.lls.edu/volumes/v36-issue1/martin-original1.pdf

"After all, who thinks we'd have the copyright terms we do now if it wasn't for Disney buying off congressmen?"

Anybody who has done some research?

Ever since I started to do some research into this subject, I've noticed that this is a straw man argument that's brought up over and over again. And it's a straw man for a few reasons:

1. The United States has historically lagged behind the rest of the world in copyright terms. The Sonny Bono Act was brought into play to address this.

2. The European term of lifetime +70 years was put into play due to longer lifespans. The original Berne Convention term of lifetime +50 was to allow for the lifetime of the author plus children and grandchildren. With longer lifespans, 50 years was no longer considered enough.

3. In Europe, a policy decision had been made to consider all foreign copyrights to be expired upon their expiry in their home country. Therefore, American copyrights would expire 20 years before European copyrights did. This would impact not only American intellectual property, but also give European creative artists an advantage over American artists, as their copyrights would last longer, and therefore they would be more marketable. Therefore, a decision was made to harmonize with Europe to create a level playing field.

4. Retroactive copyright extensions were, as a rule, NOT granted in the United States. Material from the early part of the 20th century is under public domain in the United States. (http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/training/Hirtle_ Public_Domain.htm) Furthermore, the common copyright was abolished in the copyright term extensions, placing letters and unpublished works previously protected under perpetual copyright into the public domain.

5. It is one hell of a logical flaw to suggest that because a company supported a bill in public, it means that it was buying off congressmen. Particularly since the legislators were a bit more worried about harmonizing with Europe.

6. If this was an attempt to bring American Copyright Law into perpetual copyright, it failed miserably. Not only did American law simply harmonize to the MINIMUM European term, but the law also contains provisions for librarians and archivists to treat copyrighted material as public domain for archive purposes in the last 20 years of copyright protection.

So, the evil Sonny Bono act is simply...um...bringing American law up to an international standard that had existed for over twenty years or so. It's quite a far cry from Disney wanting to keep Mickey Mouse around (which, seeing as it's protected by trademark rather than copyright law, isn't an issue anyway).

(Note - my source for much of this material is http://llr.lls.edu/volumes/v36-issue1/martin-origi nal1.pdf)

"His position is that the free sharing of information is the natural state of things, and in general is beneficial to society as a whole. Copyright therefore is unnatural and creates an aberration, and is only "wrong" because government has decided to step in and take more control."

Unfortunately for your, and his, case, copyright doesn't actually cover information. It covers created works, which are considerably different. Also, the free sharing of ideas is protected under copyright law, which does not allow for an idea to be copyrighted, and has fair use limitations on the control over the content that a creator can possess, ensuring the right for the creation of derivative works (a right that is enshrined in American law, which states that in an infringement case where the content is at issue, the judge must side for the party that provides a precedent allowing greater creative freedom - for more information, read "The Mythology of the Public Domain" at http://llr.lls.edu/volumes/v36-issue1/martin-origi nal1.pdf).

A concept of copyright is perfectly natural in a society which has both the concept of one's creations being one's property and the ability to mass produce, and indeed, it develops right alongside the printing press and the rise of literacy in society.

I suggest you do some more research.

What wonderful paranoia!

You know, there is so much wrong with what you've said here that it ranges from conspiracy theories to a view of the creative artist that has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with reality, but I'm not going to shoot it down myself. I'm going to let somebody else, with far more knowledge and evidence do it for me: http://llr.lls.edu/volumes/v36-issue1/martin-origi nal1.pdf

And, as far as that wonderful, cliched paranoia goes, what are you on, and where can I get some?

"WE ARE NOT TO STAND BY WHILE THEY TAKE OUR RIGHTS AWAY!"

Polemic aside, what rights exactly are you talking about?

One of the biggest problems in this debate is that both sides have extremists who have little objection to stretching the truth, and just plain making stuff up when it suits them. Frankly, there are a lot of reformers who don't have the first inkling of what copyright actually is and does. I still remember getting into a debate with somebody who I challenged to tell me what was wrong with copyright law - and he raised several objections, all of which were based in patent or trademark law. He couldn't raise a single point that was based in copyright law itself.

Perfect example of extremists making stuff up: the Sonny Bono law, known to the reformers as the Mickey Mouse act - the problem being, of course, that the law was supported by Disney, but actually put into place to bring American copyright law in line with the current European standard, so that American intellectual property would have the same length of protection in Europe as European intellectual property. And that does make logical sense, when it comes down to it. The idea that Disney pushed it through in the middle of the night just to protect Mickey Mouse is fiction. (A great deal of information on this can be found here: http://llr.lls.edu/volumes/v36-issue1/martin-origi nal1.pdf )

So, I have to ask - what rights are being taken away here?

Isn't it be possible to get some sort of declaratory judgement from a court? Say you're RedHat (or any other Linux distributor), who happens to sell Linux and related services - in light of MS's statements, wouldn't you be entitled to know which patents are involved? MS's statements have a direct impact on your business.

And if MS refused to tell you then couldn't you get a declaration from a court that your product doesn't infringe? IIRC, this is similar to what RedHat is pursuing in its case against SCO (which is on hold while SCO v IBM drags on).

Maybe a small Linux distributor with no assets and not much to lose could pursue a case like this against MS.

First, any party bringing a lawsuit under the American legal system must have standing to sue, meaning that they must have a material interest in the outcome of the suit. Since Microsoft has not specifically threatened anybody, at the moment, it would be hard to establish standing. A really good lawyer might be able to argue that a Linux vendor is harmed by the implication that Microsoft will sue that vendors customers for patent infringement, but with any actual patent suits in process, it would be a hard sell.

Second, the American legal system refuses to issue advisory judgements, and requires that a case be 'ripe' before it can be adjudicated. Since the court would be ruling on a hypothetical ("if Microsoft were to sue for patent infringement, would we be found to be infringing?") the court would (and should) simply refuse to hear the case.

Here is a good reference for standing, advisory opinions and ripeness. A little google-foo should easily turn up others.

The only bright spot in this, from a potential plaintif's point of view, is that, as a convicted monopolist, there might be a way to accuse Microsoft of restrain-of-trade, or some other violation of the Sherman Act. Unfortunately, I think that prosecution of anti-trust cases must be brought by the federal government, and that is not very likely with the current administration. Private actions can be brought for violations of the Clayton Act but I don't quite see how it could aply in this case, and only consumers injured by their dealings with the violator have standing to sue, which puts most direct competitors out of the running.

Disclaimer: IANALBIHTBL (IANAL But I Have Taken Business Law)

California is a very, very different place from the rest of the US. (It may say something that the Ninth Circuit is the most overturned on appeal.)

Does music on an iPod fall under the definition of "digital musical recording?"

I don't know. I'd have to know more about how an iPod worked. But I'd suspect not.

The definition does not force the "digital musical recording" to exist only on an AHRA device/medium, so a computer dedicated to playing music could be covered, since the OS and other programs would be incidental to that role.

I agree. And that's basically what a CD player is. But hardly anyone has general purpose computers that are used so as to qualify for that.

The 9th makes bad law. It defines the "active judiciary." It is consistently the most reviewed and reversed (relative to size) circuit (cf. the 5th).

All the circuits have their ups and downs. But when you take the 9th's size into consideration (it's the biggest circuit, with the most cases), it's pretty middle of the road in terms of review and reversal. There's an article about it here. Plus, it's not like either review or reversal are bad or indicate a failure by the lower court.

Copying off an AHRA CD to a computer so you can at some indeterminate time make a "digital musical recording" is a "use"

Except that it's not going to fool anyone. There is a limit to how far you can be clever with the law and get away with it, and you're passing it. You'd do better not to delude yourself or mislead others along these lines.

in much the same way that someone growing dope in their backyard or a butterfly flapping it's wings is regulatable interstate commerce, or that invoking eminent domain to transfer private property to a private corporation is "public use." :-)

Meh. I don't really have a problem with either Wickard or Kelo.

Thanks for the discussion, it can be nice arguing with lawyers, since they usually don't go all "ad hominem" when presented with something with which they disagree.

Yes. Of course, only an idiot would disagree with a lawyer. ;)

It's Loyola Marymount's Law School in Los Angeles participating, not Loyola University, which is Chicago. It looks like they both are taking pains to differentiate - "Loyola Marymount" vs. "Loyola University Chicago".

Other than that, carry on.

Could this be pursued under the 5th Amendment's Takings Clause? The biggest obstacle seems to be that the government only regulates one possible use for the DVD as opposed to limiting all possible uses.

See Takings Clause analysis and flowchart at http://faculty.lls.edu/~manheimk/cl2/takings4.htm

Would this be a vioaltion of their anti-trust agreement? Seems like this could really put the hurt on Norton, etc.

Antitrust law does not forbid you to hurt your competitors.[*] All competition does that. In fact, that is what competition is. Given a fixed number of customers, any enterprise that tries to attract as many customers as possible necessarily hurts its competitors, who will either lose customers or not gain as many new ones as they would have otherwise. Thus, the competitors will be financially worse off than they would have been had if they had been able to lay their grubby little hands on those customers. Or at least they should be. Competition is supposed to punish inefficiencies and reward efficiency, thereby allocating scarce resources the best/most efficient way possible.

What antitrust law primarily seeks to protect is competition, not competitors. Now, it might admittedly be just a little bit hard to have the one (former) without the other (latter) and much of tension within antitrust law and the debate surrounding it centres on that particular problem: should antitrust regulate structure or behaviour?

In Alcoa[**] Justice Learned Hand stated that it was not the objective of antitrust law to punish efficient companies: in case a party has had a monopoly 'thrust upon it', its position was not unlawful. However, he went on to say:

'Nothing compelled [Alcoa] to keep doubling and redoubling its capacity before others entered the field. It insists that it never excluded competitors; but we can think of no more effective exclusion than progressively to embrace each new opportunity as it opened, and to face every newcomer with new capacity already geared into a great organization, having the advantage of experience, trade connections and the elite of personnel.'

This so-called Alcoa doctrine placed monopolies under a strict per se-rule: i.e., monopolies were prohibited as such. The issue became one of structure: does an enterprise occupy a position of monopoly (within a relevant market) or not. If yes, unless it can be proved that the company is a mere passive recipient of its monopoly position, it is unlawful.

The Alcoa doctrine was severly critized, notably by Robert Bork in his The Antitrust Paradox: A Policy At War With Itself. Justice Hand seemed to find Alcoa guilty of being nothing more than a better competitor; better at doing business; in fact, Alcoa was being punished for being more efficient. And as the criticism took hold, courts reverted back to an ante-Alcoa, U.S. Steel[#] rule of reason approach centring on the behaviour of monopolizing: simply put, intent + harm. This would appear to be the (established) law today.

Bork and the Chicago schoolers sometimes seem to go futher than that however: one sometimes gets the impression that to them, the existence of a monopoly shows nothing more and nothing less than superiority in the market place. In other words, a position of monopoly is evidence of superior efficiency; efficiency is a valid exculpatory defence as it contibutes to increased consumer welfare[##]. A lot of the defence of Microsoft's monopoly case seems to rest upon this premise. See, for instance, here and here; for a more sober view, see Posner's article Antitrust in the New Economy , in particular, perhaps, pages 8-9.

Neo-classical economic theory and its antitrust exponents (to which Bork and the Chicago-schoolers obviously belong) are not without critics however. See, for instance, this piece by Metzenbaum and Foer in which they write:

'Antitrust remedies, [Greenspan] says, tend not to be efficient. His attitude is, if we wait long enough, dominant companies (po

I don't know the answer to that specific question. However, the answer to your question hinges on a concept called the "the dormant commerce clause."

Read up and enjoy. I have a final on this on Monday.

He (Mr. McBride) says the GPL is against the constitution. How?

He goes on to quote a case which from the text he is quoting appears to be about extending the time that copyright applies to an item that is copyrighted and when it falls into the public domain.

How does this case apply to the GPL which is at the end of the day a licence? I would contend that it has little or no relevance whatsoever to the case in hand.

If anyone's interested I found this site contains useful information about the case Mr. McBride quotes.

Of course, anyone who is enlightened knows that the GPL in summary states a) I own my work and I keep my copyright, b) you can copy my work freely, c) if you modify my work it's ok ... but most radically of all d) if you then want to distribute this modified work then you can, on the same terms i gave you the original work. Ok it's a bit more complex than that.. but you probably get the gist of it.

Mark.

But, according to this PDF file (see page. 29-30), IDEAS can't be copyrighted, only the embodiment.

Seems to me that based on the logic of the linked PDF file, both are fine, copyright-wise.

Now, if the dragon Godzilla is trademarked, that's a different story since that deals with "trade dress" and consumer confusion.

From http://llr.lls.edu/eldred/martin-original1.pdf:

The fact that creators of new works cannot merely re-use the expression contained in copyrighted work of others without permission forces them to be creative. Composers cannot rehash the melodies created by earlier composers, they must create their own new original melodies.

How is this possible? Case law states that copying four notes of another song's "hook" is enough to get a songwriter in trouble with copyright law, and that the standard for copying is not an exact match but merely substantial similarity. Another case that I've read somewhere states that there is no unprotected "idea" in music, only "expression".

Melodies are determined by the distances between adjacent notes in frequency (intervals) and in time (note duration). Four notes will contain three (interval, duration) distance vectors. Assume that the scale contains twelve distinct intervals and that a judge will distinguish three distinct note durations (eighth, quarter, and half); thus, there are 36 possible distance vectors from one note to the next, and 36 to the third power equals 46,656 distinct melodies. No other melodies are possible in the Western musical scale. If only one hundred songwriters in the world were to create one melody each week, they would run out of melodies within nine years.

"Melancholy Elephants" by Spider Robinson details the dire consequences of literally running out of new ideas.

"The Right to Read" by Richard M. Stallman is another interesting short story.

Costs rise. It's called inflation.

...Expand to increase revenue and increase "economies of scale" efficiency. ...

Where in the Constitution of the United States is the government granted the power to tell them HOW MUCH they can expand?

Now, if your state or city has laws preventing other cable companies from moving into your area, there's something for you to protest.

Ironically, though, head-to-head competition is just what local governments don't want. Once a second operator enters a market, the whole idea of a cable franchise collapses and, with it, the possibility of charging a franchise fee and extracting other benefits for local government.

This case in question was the following: a large, commercial corporation ("Closed Corp") sued a large group of mostly anonymous Open Source developers and users ("Open Sesame") for building and advocating a GUI that purportedly violated patents of said corporation (i.e. MSFT sues KDE).

Actual briefs were researched and published and a mock court trial took place in October of 1999. The surprises in the verdict included jurisdiction over named defendants, regardless of country of origin.

More information can be found at the program web site.
Joseph R. Kiniry
http://www.cs.caltech.edu/~kiniry/
California Institute of Technology