This is where we reach the crux of the issue at hand. The question being: what is special about airwaves? As you explain it, broadcasters must allow me to recei

This is where we reach the crux of the issue at hand. The question being: what is special about airwaves? As you explain it, broadcasters must allow me to receive their over the air content freely, but when I receive the same content from a 3rd party that took it from the air and made it available to me over cable, internet, smoke signals.. they are illegally rebroadcasting. So between congress establishing this bargain (where the only obvious medium for broadcasting was over-the-air) and today, where there are many ways to transmit TV, it suddenly became important over which medium I receive their content under the license granted to me by the bargain the broadcasters entered into. This seems like an odd situation we find ourselves in, because when the FCC started giving out licenses for spectrum nobody gave any thought to other mediums; there simply were no others. I say we end this charade, broadcasters stop transmitting over the public airwaves, we repurpose their spectrum for something useful and everybody keeps watching their favourite show on cable, as they are already doing.