Aereo is not intercepting over-the-air TV broadcasts, just helping them along

Hiawatha Bray writes in the Boston Globe, TV-via-Internet company seeks a legal thumbs up:

The controversial Internet TV company Aereo Inc. doesn’t want lawsuits from angry broadcasters to prevent its entry into Boston and other major US markets. So on Monday, Aereo launched a preemptive strike, asking a federal court to rule that its business model is legal.

Aereo, which intercepts over-the-air TV broadcasts and then transmits them over the Internet, currently operates only in New York, but is planning to launch its service in Boston May 15.

After reading this I had to look up intercept:

intercept |ˌintərˈsept| verb
obstruct (someone or something) so as to prevent them from continuing to a destination

Well now that isn't the correct use of wording.

TV signals can't be intercepted.

When I grab a TV signal from my TV antenna, I'm not intercepting it, I'm receiving it.

That's what Aereo is doing.

They are not preventing TV signals from going elsewhere.

The broadcasters are upset though, because when Aereo comes to a city, the broadcasters can lose money.

Here's how, Broadcasters Circle Wagons Against a TV Streaming Upstart:

For several decades companies that were lucky enough to own licenses for local TV stations thrived on advertising revenue alone, and because there was relatively little competition they enjoyed huge audiences and profit margins to match.

As cable and then the Internet introduced new competitors, station owners began to rely on a second revenue source, the so-called retransmission fees that come from the cable and satellite operators that pick up their signals and repackage them for subscribers. Now that they’ve had a taste of these fees, the stations aren’t willing — or able, they say — to go back to the old model of advertising alone.