22 Sep
We’ve had soooo many people comment in blogs and wherenot about our FAQ statement on “Is this legal: Yes”. Kind of brief and not very helpful, right? A blogger at wisebread.com recently had an article mentioning Graboid removed from the site because of the danger that they might be seen as supporting something that might be illegal.
Now, I’ll go out on a limb here and assume that most of you don’t give a damn what happens to us (Graboid), but are mainly concerned with what happens to you for downloading files that may or may not have been posted without permission from the copyright holders. Well here’s the thing - all the music industry lawsuits out there target people who’ve both downloaded and uploaded material. Uploading (posting) content you don’t have the right to post is not condoned nor legal in most countries, including the US.
But.
Downloading isn’t subject to the same laws. I haven’t read a SINGLE case of someone being sued successfully or otherewise for simply downloading and viewing, or listening, to content off the net/p2p/torrents/blah blah. If I’ve simply missed all those cases out there, then please enlighten me.
The cute answer in our FAQ refers to Graboid, not the activities of our users. Stay tuned for comments on this blog from the people out there who have contrary evidence. Or not.
5 Responses for "Is This Legal?"
And screw the RIAA too! They killed JFK!
Here is my view on the whole “Downloading of pirated movies” issue. I can go over to my friends house and borrow all the DVD’s I want with no problems. But as soon as I download one off of the internet, the MPAA comes to my house to break down the door, rape my women and kill the children!
So why can I borrow movies and watch them, but not download them and watch them?
And this is just my own personal opinion on the matter. Except the part about the MPAA being communist serial rapists, that part I can back up with scientific facts!
also, this is the second time I have had to make this post, the last one didn’t show up!
I always figured that the Graboid software itself was legal and thats all you were stating, similar to how Limewire states their sofware is “legal” if you pay for it. Sure the Limewire software package itself is legal, but what you do with it still isn’t, no matter what you paid for it.
And as far as the “download only” thing goes, thats fooey too.. My buddy Mike was using BitTorrent to download a Bourne Surpremacy HD rip off of IsoHunt. This was the first torrent he had ever downloaded and he was not sharing any other files thru BitTorrent at the time. Within 2-4 hours of starting his download he received an email from his ISP (which shall go un-named because I use the same one) which was a forward of an email from Universal..
The e-mail from Universal that was forwarded to his ISP which was then sent to him read somewhat to the tone of “We are aware one of your subscribers located at _X_ IP address is using your service to illegally download and obtain the following licensed Universal properties: The Bourne Supremacy..” It went on to state that something to the effect of “Even though such actions give Universal the right to pursue legal course, we feel it’s best for you and the internet community as a whole to handle these measures discretely and ask that said subscriber cease and desist any and all current and future downloads”
His ISP asked that he stop doing what he was doing before they pull service and don’t do it again. He poo’d his pants and stopped immediately as did I (I had started downloading the same movie but I never got a letter). Granted it seems that Universal (and strangely seemingly only Universal, anyone I know says stay the eff away from Universal torrents) has planted several “bait and hook” torrent files on any of the major free torrent sites to catch people in the act BUT it does go to show that even if you are just downloading…you can still get busted.
I had no misconceptions on the legality of this program and its content from the start tho..
[moderator: actually, whenever you're downloading a file over BitTorrent, you're also uploading it to other users which creates a serious legal conundrum -- any peer-to-peer technologies share this inescapable problem: downloaders automatically become uploaders]
Yeah Chase, I had an issue similar to that a few years back… And they emailed me like a 3 page explanation of what I was doing wrong and all the information for what file I had downloaded
It didn’t stop me though, I kept using BT Networks until graboid came around.
If you want to see what one of these notices might look like, I took a picture of mine and put it on my server, it’s two pages.
Here is the first page, http://www.pointlessworld.com/pics/warning1.jpg
here is the second, http://www.pointlessworld.com/pics/warning2.jpg
Yeah… to the guy using bit torrent, you haven’t checked out how it works obviously, while you’re downloading you’re also uploading, other people that get into the same torrent get pieces of the file(s) from you. So you are sharing even if it’s your first download and you haven’t completed it yet.
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