The top four broadcast networks recently placed streaming startup Locast in their crosshairs, teeing up what’s likely to be a lengthy battle over whether the service can carry local stations without paying them retransmission consent fees.

Although Locast follows the footsteps of other shuttered streaming services that ran into trouble with the networks, the company contends that both its technology and its legal grounding can survive the lawsuit, filed July 31.

On the flip side, ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox assert that Locast falls into the same category as the now-defunct service Aereo, which was shuttered after the Supreme Court in 2014 rejected that company’s attempt to use a copyright law “loophole” to circumvent paying carriage fees.

More at Law360.