Looked at another way, Comcast was using its Web-access franchise to protect its pay-TV franchise.
A core issue for sports franchises is protecting their property rights to games whose players they pay for, whose stadiums they pay for -- at least in part -- and whose broadcast rights provide them with a rich source of revenue.
State franchise laws protect car dealers from the full implications of Internet shopping.
It has its own superhero franchise to protect, in "Spider-Man," and a star who has made Sony a fortune when he has been inspirational, as in "The Pursuit of Happyness" in 2006, or lovable, as in "Hitch" a year earlier.
But culling the herd is slow and difficult, partly because state franchise laws protect the country's 21,640 car dealers (who exert much political power in state legislatures).
Blizzard has had "twenty years of successfully telling stories and a very vested interest in making sure their franchise is protected," so theirs is a pretty entrenched vision.
Blizzard have had "20 years of successfully telling stories and a very vested interest in making sure their franchise is protected", so theirs is a pretty entrenched vision.
I suspect that most citizens who have signed up for such efforts honestly (and commendably) believe that they are valiantly protecting the franchise against the elusive scourge of voter fraud.
The other 29 owners have a vested interest in protecting the franchise's value, because they paid $300 million to buy the team last year and will eventually re-sell it.
These days will also be recorded as a time of struggle between the nation's highest federal court and a Southern state supreme court that, in a reversal of the old states' rights routine, showed the greater sensitivity to protecting the franchise.
Last night, Attorney General Eric Holder reflected on our history and on LBJ's legacy to reaffirm the Obama administration's commitment to protecting the franchise for all Americans.
