NEWS

According to the UK Intellectual Property Office, Netflix password sharing is a "crime 」

Release time:

2023-01-13 11:18

 

 

Netflix revealed earlier this year that more than 0.1 billion households around the world use another family's account information to log in and access their content. According to the UK Intellectual Property Office ("UKIPO"), this widespread use of accounts or passwords is illegal.

 

In In a statement released in December, UKIPO said crypto-sharing was both a civil and a criminal offence and that perpetrators could theoretically face prosecution. Shortly after its release, the reference to password sharing was removed and replaced with "Access to movies, TV series or live sporting events through the (...) app without paying a subscription fee is a copyright infringement and you could commit a crime. 」 In other words, sharing login information with non-subscribers can have serious legal consequences.

 

First, doing so is likely to constitute a violation of the terms of use agreed to by the subscriber. For example,Netflix users generally agree not to share the "Netflix Service and any content accessed through the Service (...)" with individuals outside [their] home and not to "disclose to anyone the password (...) associated with the account. 」 Any violation of these terms will result in Netflix terminating the subscription agreement and suing the user for compensation.

 

Second, under UK law, allowing others to access copyrighted works for free is a secondary infringement. Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (1988) does stipulate that "the copyright of a work is infringed, and the person does not have the permission of the copyright owner (...)(d) the extent to which the copyright owner is adversely affected. 」 On the other hand, those who use other people's passwords to access copyrighted works without paying are, of course, first-hand copyright violations.

 

Third, in addition to being a civil offence, sharing a password or accessing copyrighted content through an app without paying a subscription fee could also be a crime. Behind the sensationalism,It is not clear which crime or crimes the IPO refers. Legal experts have commented that although UK copyright law provides for a variety of criminal offences, it is unlikely to break the law when sharing passwords with relatives and close friends.

 

In practice, given the magnitude of the problem, streaming services turn a blind eye to it and often do not take civil or criminal legal action against users. Instead, they have been looking for other ways to solve the problem. For example,After testing different ways to monetize account sharing, Netflix announced that starting in 2023, users who share passwords with individuals outside the home will have to pay an additional fee.

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