We’ve never been hesitant to address legal issues relevant to Graboid Video, but please keep in mind that we are not lawyers, and our own legal jurisdiction is in Canada, where we have researched the law extensively. So here are a few thoughts in response to questions raised in the commentary of the last blog post.

1. The License Agreement point about using your bandwidth to deliver service to other users is an artifact of using legal language from other services as a starting point for our own. We should’ve caught this before now, and we appreciate having it pointed out. That clause will be modified immediately. There is no element of Graboid usage that allows or encourages you to share video with others.
2. Graboid Video (the company) is completely legal in Canada. If we were located in the US, we would be completely legal as well, although we might have to slightly modify some of our operating principles to comply with elements of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) that don’t apply in Canada. We didn’t move to Canada so we could start this service. We actually like it here. Universal health care, no guns, and it’s easy to get a job driving a snowplow!
3. Users of Graboid Video are not breaking any laws that we know of, and we know of a lot. Sharing copyrighted material, without permission, is illegal. We have not been able to find case law or media reports of anyone, anywhere in the world, ever being charged with illegally VIEWING copyrighted material. All such reports involve sharing, not viewing. We’ve made this point before in this blog, asking anyone who knows of such a case to let us know. We haven’t received any responses.
4. We won’t be turning over names to the RIAA. Particularly because they’re the music industry guys, not the movie industry guys. As for the MPAA or anyone else, if we’re served with a court order to release the names of our users, we will comply. However, we do not keep records of what individual users are doing with our service, just the amount of bandwidth used.
5. Nothing we do, nothing we say in this blog, and nothing your own lawyer tells you, can prevent you from being sued or charged with a crime. That’s just the way the legal system works. If you think that OUR comments on YOUR legal situation somehow protect you, they don’t. We’ve paid for great legal advice from multiple legal firms, and even they say that their advice is simply advice and they’re not responsible if we get sued. The same applies to us - we’re just telling you what we think, because you asked. We’re not your lawyer or your mother. Make your own decision.

Thanks for using Graboid. If you feel like being argumentative about any of these points (especially you, Brent), then we’d love to entertain a discussion, but not in this blog. Send me an email. I’ll add to this post if warranted.

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