Netflix Cracking Down on Password Sharing in Four More Countries, Including Canada

[rickeames]

Good.

You can't share your Theater tickets and you can't share traditional cable. Bizarre people think its OK to share a $15 netflix account with their entire family all over the US and complain when their favorite show gets cancelled.

This is a non-serious comment. I have 2 kids in college. They are part of my "household" as I fund their existence and claim them on taxes. Requiring separate accounts for each of them is insane. As is an additional payment per child. They don't come home every month (duh, they are in college) so they can't "login in the primary residence."

And they are the ones that actually watch the shows, so there goes viewership.

And also, you're wrong. My college kids *can* login to XFinity Stream outside of the house. Not everything works, but the bulk of it does. We don't share the password with the universe, but we certainly do to the people we fund as part of our family.

I also think they are screwing snow birds -- if you go to Arizona or Florida half of the year, you can't checkin once a month unless they make it easy to switch primary when you do.

All in all, their mismanagement of their books and overspending on crappy content has resulted in this land grab. We'll see -- pissing off your loyal customers is not usually a good strategy.

 

[1284814]

Netflix is free to charge what they want and the customer is free to evaluate the price to value ratio. I defend Netflix to lose their corporate shirt if they make the wrong move.

sabotage? i ditched them, and I am encouraging my friends to ditch them. ( not forcing them, I just automatically loose interest in all their exclusives). Curations usually appr customers , Apple included as if they are giving the favor to pay them. I don’t see it this way.

 

[compwiz1202]

So here's a question I've had about all this.

I pay for the 2 simultaneous screen account tier and I have a vacation property with a smart TV that is logged into my Netflix. If my significant other and I are watching separate things at home at the same time, its fine. Now if my significant other goes out to my vacation property a few days before me and we watch something at the same time, now its suddenly not fine because its password sharing across households?

I just struggle with all of this because if you pay for 2 simultaneous screens, who cares where those simultaneous screens are. An apartment with multiple roommates can have 2 totally unrelated people watching their own thing in their own rooms on a shared account and that's just fine, but 2 related people can't watch their own thing in their own homes because that's now password sharing? Where is the line drawn?

I'm not trying to argue for 1 person giving their password to 20 friends, but 2 people using their account at 2-3 properties associated with them shouldn't be an issue.

My ? is what happens if the fifth person tries to use NF on 4 streams. They get blocked, or does the first one get the boot, or does the first person get asked if they want to allow the fifth login?

Or the more problematic one of the account owner getting a message that Wife John Paul and Susan are wanting to stream with you, and who do you want to boot. If you pick anyone but you, you're in trouble

 

[1284814]

Under the old plan, if I wanted to have the premium plan shared with my sister, mom, and dad that would be $20.99.

Under the new plan, I would have to cut someone off (only max of 2 additional accounts), and it would still cost either $36.97, or $57.96 if I didn’t cut anyone off by paying for another separate account.

Netflix can try whatever they like with their pricing schemes, but I just cancelled my service on the news that this nonsense was coming to Canada. There are far too many things that eat into my wallet and in my opinion their content isn’t good enough to justify the insane cost they’re asking.

I hope this strategy fails hard.

Congratulations

 

[TechnoMonk]

The limitation is not by location but towards people. You can use Netflix all over the country you live in and even most foreign countries.

I'm pretty sure they'll use device fingerprinting, IP-addresses and maybe even location data to make the decisions. Also they don't have to have a system which works 100%. If Netflix is in doubt they'll just ask the account owner to confirm.

I want entertainment, not tracking, fingerprinting, snooping on my devices and extra paper work. Clearly not worth the trouble for me.

 

[Peepo]

Not convinced that anything like this would be workable. Some ISP operate huge ranges of IP pools. Netflix are not going to be able to reliably infer what is "allowed" multiple use and what is "not allowed" purely by IP alone.

I am convinced that it can be workable.

 

[Ladybug]

My ? is what happens if the fifth person tries to use NF on 4 streams. They get blocked, or does the first one get the boot, or does the first person get asked if they want to allow the fifth login?

Or the more problematic one of the account owner getting a message that Wife John Paul and Susan are wanting to stream with you, and who do you want to boot. If you pick anyone but you, you're in trouble

My son and I were streaming recently on their two stream plan. When my hubby tried to login it said we had the maximum number of streams already but we could upgrade to 4 streams if we wanted. So I do know it blocks the third person, no booting anyone off.

 

[Jetscreamer]

One day all of these streaming services will just go with the commercial option by default. It will be like a commercial cable channel. People who don’t like commercial will just pay for an ad-free account.

 

[Will Co]

"4.2. The Netflix service and any content accessed through our service are for your personal and non-commercial use only and may not be shared with individuals beyond your household unless otherwise allowed by your subscription plan. During your Netflix membership, we grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access the Netflix service and Netflix content through the service. Except for the foregoing, no right, title or interest shall be transferred to you. You agree not to use the service for public performances."

There is nothing about household as a location but household as a group of people.

"4.3. You may access the Netflix content primarily within the country in which you have established your account and only in geographic locations where we offer our service and have licensed such content. The content that may be available will vary by geographic location and will change from time to time. The number of devices on which you may simultaneously watch depends on your chosen subscription plan and is specified on the "Account" page."

You are explicitly granted the right to access content in your own country.

The original point isn't about what the T&C say. It's about how they will achieve the "household" part. If not by location (and by extension some geo-location technology) then what? and how?

 

[polaris20]

This is a non-serious comment. I have 2 kids in college. They are part of my "household" as I fund their existence and claim them on taxes. Requiring separate accounts for each of them is insane. As is an additional payment per child. They don't come home every month (duh, they are in college) so they can't "login in the primary residence."

And they are the ones that actually watch the shows, so there goes viewership.

And also, you're wrong. My college kids *can* login to XFinity Stream outside of the house. Not everything works, but the bulk of it does. We don't share the password with the universe, but we certainly do to the people we fund as part of our family.

I also think they are screwing snow birds -- if you go to Arizona or Florida half of the year, you can't checkin once a month unless they make it easy to switch primary when you do.

All in all, their mismanagement of their books and overspending on crappy content has resulted in this land grab. We'll see -- pissing off your loyal customers is not usually a good strategy.

I agree, and said very much the same thing yesterday. But you won't win that argument with the Netflix heroes here, who, for some unknown reason, are defending Netflix's crappy business practices.

 

[sofila]

They need to separate # of streams from quality already. They shouldn't be charging different for quality anyway. Should be by the number of streams only

Exactly. I can understand (not much, in 2023) paying more for Ultra HD but I don't think it's fair to tie that to a 4 users plan. Even less justifiable looking at what is about to happen. Single user UHD Plan at a reasonable price, please.

 

[sofila]

FWIW I think their pricing model is fundamentally wrong. They require top dollar for highest quality. This causes resentment and people wanting to share that top price between friends. I suspect a great many don't want to consume simultaneously on 4 devices. They just want 4K.

If they offered high quality across the bands, with different numbers of streams being the delineator between bands, their customers would be able to purchase what they want to purchase, and would be far less driven to feel the need to share.

Perfect. Hope that someone in charge at Netflix will finally have this crossing his mind

 

[I7guy]

sabotage? i ditched them, and I am encouraging my friends to ditch them. ( not forcing them, I just automatically loose interest in all their exclusives). Curations usually appr customers , Apple included as if they are giving the favor to pay them. I don’t see it this way.

Those that cancel the service Netflix wasn’t appropriate for anyway. I’m going to wind up by paying less because now my family will each have their own subscriptions.

 

[Christopher Kim]

The way I see it, this affects these different user-cases in the following ways:

(1) Family, parents paying, sharing with kids, kids no longer live at home (eg. college, or something similar). If kids want to keep accounts, either parents will (begrudgingly) pay the additional account fees, or find a workaround if possible to keep kids authorized (eg. share "passcode" once every 31 days if this will even work). If parents weren't really watching, it's possible they might just cancel altogether if their kids can't watch.

(2) Individual / couple / family, who travels frequently (eg. the "travels with Apple TV" folks), or ppl w/ a second home (Eg. Summer home, Snowbirds, etc.) I think Netflix will find a way to accommodate these legit customer uses - these are not the use cases that this policy change is meant to crack down on. Will it be more inconvenient to users than now? Likely. But it would behoove Netflix to find the most painless way to keep these customers.

(3) User who shares w/ family or friends who live apart from them (eg. Family where kids are adults and have their own homes). I think it's unlikely the original user will pay the additional account charges for these others they were doing favors for just so their extended family / friends can keep using it. Maybe if it's close family/friends, ppl pay the $7.99 to the user to add the "Additional Account", but depends on how close they are and whether worth the hassle. If initial user still finds value in Netflix, they'll keep it. The extended family / friends may or may not decide to subscribe themselves.

(4) Friend groups who couldn't / wouldn't afford the subscription on their own, but only subscribe because they can split the cost among 3 or 4 payers. Will likely be a lot of these folks who cancel, although probably some minority who decide they still need it and (begrudgingly) pay for it themselves solo.

For all of these groups, there's always the possibility that this "decision-point" makes them re-assess whether they were even using Netflix enough for a subscription to be worth it, and decide to cancel. Would also add the "we're annoyed / pissed-off enough that we're just going to cancel" folks here as well.

Lot of moving factors - hard to know whether this will be net-positive or net-negative for Netflix.

 

[thecombatwombat]

Tell us the legislation that shows that its a crime.

I linked to it earlier in the thread, you really should look, it's quite interesting.

Basically the barrier in the US for it to cross into criminal territory is . . . exactly what Netflix is talking about doing. And they most certainly know this. So long as Netflix doesn't try to enforce their TOS, it's unlikely to count as a crime. But if they begin doing, well, exactly what they're doing, trying to force users to stop sharing passwords, and if users then try to workaround those measures, it could very well be considered a federal crime in the US.

JIPEL Blog

The Blog is a platform in partnership with the NYU School of Law Engineering Center of Innovation Law and Policy.

blog.jipel.law.nyu.edu

 

[I7guy]

I agree, and said very much the same thing yesterday. But you won't win that argument with the Netflix heroes here, who, for some unknown reason, are defending Netflix's crappy business practices.

There’s nothing wrong with defending Netflix’s terms of service. Just like there is nothing stopping anybody in criticizing Netflix. They are both expressions of opinions.

Remember it’s up to the customer to decide if the price to value ratio of the service is worth it to them. And if not cancel. Dont be mad at Netflix - cancel.

 

[Wollombi]

iPad 2 wifi 16gb iPhone 4 32 gb


The real crime is not letting these *ancient* devices retire and have a peaceful end... 😂

 

[Wollombi]

I linked to it earlier in the thread, you really should look, it's quite interesting.

Basically the barrier in the US for it to cross into criminal territory is . . . exactly what Netflix is talking about doing. And they most certainly know this. So long as Netflix doesn't try to enforce their TOS, it's unlikely to count as a crime. But if they begin doing, well, exactly what they're doing, trying to force users to stop sharing passwords, and if users then try to workaround those measures, it could very well be considered a federal crime in the US.

JIPEL Blog

The Blog is a platform in partnership with the NYU School of Law Engineering Center of Innovation Law and Policy.

blog.jipel.law.nyu.edu

Maybe you should actually read said article. Direct quote of the 2nd paragraph:

"Are the alarmist commentators correct? Ninth Circuit law remains unclear on this point, as there have been no cases specifically involving CFAA prosecutions of password sharing for non-commercial, personal use. That said, there are several factual distinctions between Nosal II and a hypothetical case involving someone being prosecuted under the CFAA for using a borrowed Netflix or HBO Go password. Given these factual distinctions, I speculate that the Ninth Circuit would probably hold that SVOD password sharing does not constitute a criminal violation of the CFAA, at least under the Ninth Circuit’s current interpretation of 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(2)(C)."

In other words, still not a crime, no matter how much you would like it to be.

 

[Wollombi]

Yes, and doing it in a way that's cheaper for the "freeloaders" to get Netflix than paying for their own accounts (unless they want the cheap ad-supported model).

I actually think this could work when people do the math and their kids realize that $8 per month to watch at the college dorm is less than $17 a month to watch at the college dorm.

I think if it comes to that, a bunch of the kids in the dorm will just split the cost of an account, since 5 profiles can be made on just about any tier. Even cheaper. And all coming from the same network/WAN IP.

Seriously, most college kids are eating ramen because proper groceries are expensive. You really think they are going to be willing to shell out another $8/month on something they've been able to use for "free" since they were in middle school?

 

[TechnoMonk]

Maybe you should actually read said article. Direct quote of the 2nd paragraph:

"Are the alarmist commentators correct? Ninth Circuit law remains unclear on this point, as there have been no cases specifically involving CFAA prosecutions of password sharing for non-commercial, personal use. That said, there are several factual distinctions between Nosal II and a hypothetical case involving someone being prosecuted under the CFAA for using a borrowed Netflix or HBO Go password. Given these factual distinctions, I speculate that the Ninth Circuit would probably hold that SVOD password sharing does not constitute a criminal violation of the CFAA, at least under the Ninth Circuit’s current interpretation of 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(2)(C)."

In other words, still not a crime, no matter how much you would like it to be.

I will present the Netflix viral tweet about love or sharing password.

I think if it comes to that, a bunch of the kids in the dorm will just split the cost of an account, since 5 profiles can be made on just about any tier. Even cheaper.

Seriously, most college kids are eating ramen because proper groceries are expensive. You really think they are going to be willing to shell out another $8/month on something they've been able to use for "free" since they were in middle school?

A good defense attorney will start here…

https://twitter.com/x/status/840276073040371712

 

[avmsam]

 

[Wollombi]

... Ill keep enjoying mine for free thanks to T-MOBILE

Sounds like Netflix isn't the only mediocre service you like...

 

[JonBOY26]

Meh. In Australia the Premium plan, which is required if I want 4K, costs AUD$22.99 per month. It was barely worth it when that cost was shared across 3 paying households. There's no way I'll be fronting AUD$22.99 on my own, and downgrading to the standard plan is not something I would even consider as it's massively overpriced at AUD$16.99 p/m and it's only 1080p. Once the crackdown hits Australia I'll be saying "so long, Netflix".

 

[TechnoMonk]

Sounds like Netflix isn't the only mediocre service you like...

I use Tmobile, it’s the best service in my area, and where I travel. Never been happier after I dumped ATT. Verizon always sucked in my area.

 

[Wollombi]

Seems likely it mostly comes down to whether Netflix is as indispensable a service now as it once was, when there's Disney+ and Paramount+ and HBO-whatever and Hulu and AppleTV as appealing alternatives.

All of which are arguably better/better quality services, and don't nickel and dime you for things like 4k resolution or multiple streams in your own home.