The sharing of Netflix passwords has been linked to the violation of copyright, and a government agency in the United Kingdom has issued a warning that sharing accounts may result in legal ramifications. The BBC reported that a government agency in the United Kingdom said it is against the law to share passwords for online streaming services like Netflix. (A new window will open)
New anti-piracy guidelines issued by the Intellectual Property Office in the United Kingdom make it illegal to disclose one’s Netflix login information to other people (IPO).
Despite the fact that the IPO has removed all references to password sharing from its website, a spokesman of the organization has confirmed to the BBC that the practice of exchanging passwords is both a criminal and civil offense. Sharing a password with another user in order to give them access to copyright-protected information without paying may be against a number of civil and criminal laws, depending on where you live.
The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) indicates that such provisions may include things like a breach of contract, fraud, or secondary copyright infringement depending on the particulars of the case in question.
According to the statements made by the representative of the streaming service, the company will be liable for initiating legal proceedings “if necessary.”
A spokesperson of the Crown Prosecution Service in the United Kingdom reportedly told the BBC that criminal prosecution for the sharing of passwords is a possibility in the event that police launch an investigation into the matter.
When a case is turned over to the Child Protective Services (CPS) for a charging decision, the CPS has the obligation to pursue prosecution if there is sufficient evidence to do so and if doing so is in the public interest. This occurs when an investigator sends over a case to the CPS.
On the other hand, the BBC asserts (opens in a new window) that there is no evidence to suggest that British law enforcement would commence criminal proceedings against a person for exposing their Netflix password or the password to another streaming service to a third party. However, in the event that they did, an excessive number of probes would be required. According to the findings of a research group called Digital I, four million customers of Netflix in the United Kingdom provide their login information to other people.
Despite former CEO Reed Hastings’ prior view of account sharing as a “wonderful thing,” Netflix intends to make it more difficult for consumers to share their accounts with family and friends in 2019. The change is scheduled to take place in 2019. (Opens in a new window). In a shareholders’ letter (Opens in a new window) that was presented with the firm’s quarterly financial report for the third quarter of 2022, the company declared its plan to monetize account sharing.
As part of Netflix’s monetization strategy, which has been piloted in three Latin American countries, users will be charged an additional $2.99 each time they provide access to their account to someone outside of their family. There is currently a limit on the number of active streams per account, and adding more streams comes at an additional cost.
The freeloaders should be concerned: Furthermore, it has been speculated that Netflix would likely restrict IP addresses that don’t correspond to the primary account holder’s IP address.
The company said in April that of the 100 million homes across the globe that use Netflix, 30 million are in the United States and Canada.
Netflix has made it harder to share an account because it has fewer customers and more competition in the streaming business. When the company announced in April that it had lost customers for the first time in more than a decade, the stock price dropped by 30% (Opens in a new window). However, in Q3, it saw a little recovery with 2.4 million net new subscribers.
