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Monday, July 11, 2016

Jail-time for Netflix Password Sharing

Sharing your Netflix password is now illegal. A ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, last week, made sharing your Netflix password a crime under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.


Although the thought of harmlessly sharing your password with family members and friends to save a few bucks seems petty use of our judicial system, the ruling has wide implications.  Anyone divulging their login info for any subscription service, Netflix of otherwise, is now illegal.

Although aimed at more serious cyper-crimes that threaten the security and privacy of corporations' and other organizations' data and internal information, the ruling turns the average Joe into a federal criminal. So, you can no longer play the good-guy, password-sharer role at the expense of the service providers and not be considered a criminal worthy of the toughest penalties under the law.

In reality, people share their passwords, especially in a household.  Even Netflix says, "a household can share an account and users can watch Netflix on up to six different devices."  Neither Netflix, HBO-Go, Spotify or any other media streamer is going to criminally charge a subscriber - but the law allows them to if they wish.


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