Help me prove 'Graboid Video' is illegal/a scam

Magus`

I was talking to my mom the other day and she made a note to say how proud she was of finding a site that lets her pay to see 'current movies' on her computer. The one she watched was Salt, which AFAIK is still in theatres.

I've seen plenty of sites via Google that say it's a scam/virus/etc but none that are very convincing. Common sense tells me it is, though, and I would like some hard evidence to prove this.

Thanks!

Tejs

I've never heard of this before, but after researching it a little bit, it looks like it operates in the same gray area that many Bittorent clients work in.

The program itself that the user has to watch videos is entirely legal, however the downloads and any unauthorized content is not.

Magus`

Yeah, that's what I'm getting, but it can be hard to explain it to someone when they see the site claim anything/everything you can do is 'legal' that it's actually, y'know, not.

RUNN1NGMAN

These are pretty much the ONLY sites where you can be 100% sure that what you're doing is legal.

http://www.mpaa.org/contentprotection/get-movies-tv-shows

LaPuzza

I'd see where the credit card charges are going, getting the corporate info, and going from there.

These things unravel pretty quickly if you start looking.

MrMonroe

it is absolutely illegal and you should tell your mother that on the internet, you should assume that whatever it is you are looking at is illegitimate until proven otherwise

Magus`

MrMonroe wrote: »

it is absolutely illegal and you should tell your mother that on the internet, you should assume that whatever it is you are looking at is illegitimate until proven otherwise

Yeah, I said this, and I tried to show her some stuff, but like I said, she had trouble believing something so easily accessed and 'popular' can be illegal.

fightinfilipino

Magus` wrote: »

MrMonroe wrote: »

it is absolutely illegal and you should tell your mother that on the internet, you should assume that whatever it is you are looking at is illegitimate until proven otherwise

Yeah, I said this, and I tried to show her some stuff, but like I said, she had trouble believing something so easily accessed and 'popular' can be illegal.

try approaching this from the other direction: she stands to lose her credit card information to a scammer, and from there, stands to lose her IDENTITY online.

aside from that, look up the WHOIS information on the site she's visiting. www.netsol.com has an easy-enough lookup. find out who owns the thing.

last, explain to your mom that NAPSTER was also easily-accesible, too, and that was eventually found by US courts to be very very not legal.

MrMonroe

Magus` wrote: »

MrMonroe wrote: »

it is absolutely illegal and you should tell your mother that on the internet, you should assume that whatever it is you are looking at is illegitimate until proven otherwise

Yeah, I said this, and I tried to show her some stuff, but like I said, she had trouble believing something so easily accessed and 'popular' can be illegal.

well then we're into the "how can I convince my parents that Glenn Beck is an idiot" territory

if the fact that the website is displaying movies which haven't yet been released to DVD isn't sufficient notice that it's illegal, nothing is going to convince her.

Sorry.

Decius

Magus` wrote: »

MrMonroe wrote: »

it is absolutely illegal and you should tell your mother that on the internet, you should assume that whatever it is you are looking at is illegitimate until proven otherwise

Yeah, I said this, and I tried to show her some stuff, but like I said, she had trouble believing something so easily accessed and 'popular' can be illegal.

If you want to dive into the realm of sensationalist analogies, you could simply point out to her that cocaine and ecstasy are very popular drugs that can be easily accessed, and are still quite illegal.

matt has a problem

Magus` wrote: »

MrMonroe wrote: »

it is absolutely illegal and you should tell your mother that on the internet, you should assume that whatever it is you are looking at is illegitimate until proven otherwise

Yeah, I said this, and I tried to show her some stuff, but like I said, she had trouble believing something so easily accessed and 'popular' can be illegal.

Show her the recent DOJ judgment that took down several similar sites.


http://www.nasdaq.com/aspx/stock-market-news-story.aspx?storyid=201006301905dowjonesdjonline000712&title=update-doj-seizes-seven-websites-for-pirated-movie-content

CrossBuster

Try to explain it with the VCR analogy. VCRs are perfectly legal to own and to use. That doesn't make it legal for you to use a VCR to make unauthorized copies of a movie. If she wants an even more low-tech example, it's the same with photocopiers. They're perfectly legal, but it's still NOT legal to photocopy an entire book.

A lot of shady sites like this exploit the fact that not many people understand even the basics of copyright law. They can honestly say "our program is legal!" That's true, to the extent that it's legal to install the program and have it on your computer. But they don't make it clear to the users that the program can easily be used for copyright infringement, which is definitely illegal.

CrossBuster

Magus` wrote: »

Yeah, that's what I'm getting, but it can be hard to explain it to someone when they see the site claim anything/everything you can do is 'legal' that it's actually, y'know, not.

Basically they're saying that, because they don't host any content, THEY aren't doing anything illegal. That may or may not be correct, but in any case, that doesn't say anything about whether or not the end user's conduct is legal.

SniperGuy

Point out this is similar to something like Napster, or Kazaa. Both were highly popular, and both were used for vastly illegal things.

CrossBuster

How common is it for you to hear something like "is it legal to download movies via bittorrent?" "No?" "What about Kazaa?" "How about Graboid?" Repeat ad infinitum.

People really don't seem to be able to wrap their heads around the fact that no piece of p2p software is, in itself, illegal to download, install, and use.

It IS illegal to make unauthorized copies of copyrighted works. Period. The method of making the copy is pretty much irrelevant. In my experience, lots of people have trouble grasping this concept.

Magus`

matthasaproblem wrote: »

Magus` wrote: »

MrMonroe wrote: »

it is absolutely illegal and you should tell your mother that on the internet, you should assume that whatever it is you are looking at is illegitimate until proven otherwise

Yeah, I said this, and I tried to show her some stuff, but like I said, she had trouble believing something so easily accessed and 'popular' can be illegal.

Show her the recent DOJ judgment that took down several similar sites.


http://www.nasdaq.com/aspx/stock-market-news-story.aspx?storyid=201006301905dowjonesdjonline000712&title=update-doj-seizes-seven-websites-for-pirated-movie-content

I think this will be a big help!