Depends on where you live ChadTower. Where I am, thieves resorted to stealing the brass plugs (stops, caps, whatever they're called) for the fire fighter water valves on high rises. The estimated value to a recycler? About 8 cents for each one. They've also taken to stealing the brass rings around the sidewalk lights some buildings have, but those are a bit more involved apparently. They also steal the brass fittings from public toilets.
In any case, RayB, they didn't cut copper lines, they cut through fiberoptics. If someone was stealing copper, wouldn't they have noticed it wasn't copper as soon as they cut through the outer jacket and moved on to some other cable?