Does this combination かもしれないけど...とか思ってんじゃないか always have the same meaning, as if it were an idiom?


> _グレーかもしれないけど、ギリギリセーフとか思ってんじゃないか？_

This line was spoken in a video. Here's added sentences for context.

> Detective: テレビ番組を勝手にアップロードしちゃダメだよな。 お前そんなのも知らなかったんか？
> グレーかもしれないけど、ギリギリセーフとか思ってんじゃないか？ 本当に違法なんだぞお前。

This has my brain twisted since グレーかもしれない means something about it being a
grey area, and けど is an adverb meaning but; however.

I think the idea of the sentence might be that : Uploading falls in a grey
area, so you thought it was safe.

Even if I tried translating this sentence 20 different ways, I wouldn't know
which one to pick since they all have different nuances.

> Since it might fall into a grey area, you thought you were playing it safe,
> huh?

> Even though it falls in a grey area, you thought it'd be like playing it
> safe, didn't you?

> Even though it falls in a grey area, you thought you'd be playing it safe,
> didn't you?

> It could be a grey area, you thought you could play it safe, huh?

> It could fall into a grey area, you thought it would be playing it safe,
> right?

> It may be gray area, but you thought it was just barely safe.

> It might be a grey area, you thought you were playing it safe, huh?

> It's probably a grey area, you thought you were playing it safe, huh?

> It probably falls in a grey area, you thought you were playing it safe, huh?

> It might fall into a grey area, you thought you were playing it safe, huh?




I'm afraid to say none of those 10 attempts are spot-on.

  * "グレーかもしれないけど、ギリギリセーフ(だ)" as a whole is the quoted sentence corresponding to 思う. Let's not be deceived by the comma.
  * セーフ in a context like this means "barely safe/acceptable" rather than "(perfectly) safe". ギリギリ intensifies this meaning. I suppose this is related to the fact that _safe_ was initially introduced to Japanese as a baseball term. "セーフ!" on its own can mean "That was close!" See: [「ギリギリセーフ！」と英語でどういうの？](https://www.qqeng.com/blog2/study/do-that-was-close.html)

> You thought "(Legally speaking) it may fall in a grey area, but (practically
> speaking) I'd be barely safe", didn't you?

