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dragonlady7via http://ift.tt/2a1Nij9:
invisiblespork:
Before people start freaking out about OMG IT’S A FEDERAL CRIME TO SHARE NETFLIX PASSWORDS?!?!?! I want to recommend a couple good articles to read because all the newsbites I’ve seen have grossly misrepresented the facts.
The judge who authored the majority opinion acknowledges that the case they were trying bears little resemblance to Netflix password sharing and that any attempt in the future to use this ruling as precedence must take into account the context. If I’m reading correctly the case itself is almost like corporate espionage. (The dissent raises really good points, however, but it doesn’t seem to be reason to panic quite yet.)
The ruling above was because the company hadn’t consented to the password sharing even though the account holder had. But Netflix has actually explicitly stated they’re totally cool with password sharing. So this is a case of both the account holder and the company itself consenting to the password sharing. This could of course change in the future, but as it currently stands they could not charge anyone for this. It’s also far more likely they would institute technological barriers to streaming like geographical locations rather than spend the money (and good reputation) to take individuals to court. In fact, they already do this with their tiered system which restricts the number of concurrent streams you can have running (1 for basic, 2 for standard, etc).
tl;dr News networks and sites are sensationalizing this for increased viewership. You’re okay sharing your Netflix account.
invisiblespork:
Before people start freaking out about OMG IT’S A FEDERAL CRIME TO SHARE NETFLIX PASSWORDS?!?!?! I want to recommend a couple good articles to read because all the newsbites I’ve seen have grossly misrepresented the facts.
The judge who authored the majority opinion acknowledges that the case they were trying bears little resemblance to Netflix password sharing and that any attempt in the future to use this ruling as precedence must take into account the context. If I’m reading correctly the case itself is almost like corporate espionage. (The dissent raises really good points, however, but it doesn’t seem to be reason to panic quite yet.)
The ruling above was because the company hadn’t consented to the password sharing even though the account holder had. But Netflix has actually explicitly stated they’re totally cool with password sharing. So this is a case of both the account holder and the company itself consenting to the password sharing. This could of course change in the future, but as it currently stands they could not charge anyone for this. It’s also far more likely they would institute technological barriers to streaming like geographical locations rather than spend the money (and good reputation) to take individuals to court. In fact, they already do this with their tiered system which restricts the number of concurrent streams you can have running (1 for basic, 2 for standard, etc).
tl;dr News networks and sites are sensationalizing this for increased viewership. You’re okay sharing your Netflix account.
