And, actually - according to the law through 2010... the tax on royalties applied to worldwide revenue... RCW 82.04.2907 - Tax on royalties from granting intangible rights (1) Upon every person engaging within this state in the business of receiving income from royalties or charges in the nature of royalties for the granting of intangible rights, such as copyrights, licenses, patents, or franchise fees, the amount of tax with respect to such business shall be equal to the gross income from royalties or charges in the nature of royalties from the business multiplied by the rate of 0.484 percent. Microsoft got around it by claiming to record the sales in Reno, Nevada, not in Washington State.

Section 7 – Exploration of the City of Seattle as a Direct Broadband Provider - If broadband internet access service providers providing service to residents of the City of Seattle violate this ordinance in ways which evidence a pattern and practice on behalf of those providers to interfere with the rights secured by this ordinance, the City Council of the City of Seattle shall explore the potential for the City of Seattle to become a direct broadband internet access service provider to the residents of the City of Seattle.

Prior to Brown v. Board of Education, segregation was the law of the land. It took the Supreme Court along time to catch up ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education

The United Nations has proposed to make Internet access a human right. This push was made when it called for universal access to basic communication and information services at the UN Administrative Committee on Coordination. In 2003, during the World Summit on the Information Society, another claim for this was made. In some countries such as Estonia,[3] France,[4] Finland,[5], the United Kingdom Greece[6] and Spain,[7] Internet access has already been made a human right. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_Internet_access

Maybe but in Pennsylvania, drilling companies have backed away: "Major gas exploration companies such as Chesapeake and Cabot are reducing their drilling significantly — and others like Talisman Energy have shifted some of that drilling to places like Texas where taxes are close to nil and where there is little opposition to the drilling unlike western Pennsylvania where environmentalists have come out strongly against the drilling and the city of Pittsburgh has passed an all-out ban." http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2011/01/24/drilling-companies-reduce-investment-in-pennsylvania/

This came up in a thread with Cory Doctorow at BoingBoing, CELDF's Thomas Linzey replied "There are many things that currently prevent us from engaging in this new type of activism - one is preemption (both at the federal and state level); Dillon's Rule (the flip side of preemption which treats municipalities as children compared to the state "parent"), and corporate "rights" (that activism such as this violates corporate constitutionally embedded rights, including bill of rights and 14th amendment protections, as well as commerce clause "rights" under the constitution). Our organizing designs municipal laws to frontally challenge each of those impediments." Ultimately it comes down to who should decide in communities? Should corporate lobbyists influencing congress set the law and should we abide by these laws? Or, should we challenge them?

This kind of ordinance makes sense once you realize how colonized by corporate lobbying our federal govt has become. If it weren't for legalized "corruption" inherent in Congress, we might not need more local law.

Under the Clean Water Act, you only have legal standing to file a suit if you own property along a river or water system that's been damaged. You can only sue to recover monies equivalent to your loss e.g. you can no longer eat fish from the river. Monies recovered go to the Federal government, not to your local ecosystem for cleanup. With Rights for Nature, anyone shall have the authority to sue with an action in equity brought in a court of appropriate jurisdiction. See section 5b of the net neutrality ordinance.