is it illegal to share your Netflix password with other people?
In today’s video, we are covering whether or not it is illegal to share your Netflix password with other people whether they’re inside your home outside of your home they’re just friends what if they’re also helping you pay for the subscription services so many people are sharing their Netflix password whether it’s parents with college age kids who have moved out of the home or whether it’s peer-to-peer in other words a friend of yours wants to watch something and they only want to watch one show but they don’t want to pay the 9.99 or so which also begs the question how much is it to have a Netflix subscription right now if you do decide to password share you’re basically foregoing the 9.99 a month subscription payment.
At the very very least at the time of recording this video which right now is February of 2023 we’re going to cover three things:
- Is it illegal to share your Netflix password with people inside of your home?
- Is it illegal to share your password with people outside of your home?
- Is it illegal to share it period ?
And should you be doing it make sure you read to the end of this blogpost where I’m going to have a bonus tip if you are currently sharing a Netflix password with somebody and you don’t want to be sharing with them any longer so
Number 1: Is it illegal to be sharing your Netflix Password?
In 2016, the ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that it is illegal, it’s a crime in other words to share your online password with somebody else but not only is it a crime to share your online password it is also against Netflix terms of use which I’m going to put on the screen right here and I’m also going to include the link in the description so you guys can take a look at it anytime you want.
I’m assuming that a lot of you are not really sure what you even agree to when you check the box to sign up for Netflix you know there’s a lot of language, a lot of text there most of the time we don’t bother to read what it even says we just simply scroll to the bottom ? check the box? so that we can access our account quick?
So let’s say you’re a college student and let’s say you’ve moved out of the house because you’re going to college, does this mean that you’re going to be able to use the same account as your parents while you’re in college?
Well, this brings up a very important question which is how does Netflix define a household? How do they know if there are multiple people using the account that are not within the household so in order to determine if someone is part of a given household Netflix will use some factors some of which are your IP address, maybe your physical address but also device IDs so if you’re someone who’s you know gone away to college and you’re in a different state and in a city very far away from your main household or where your parents live then you’re no longer going to be able to use your parents IP address because to use the IP address you usually have to be within a certain proximity of the Wi-Fi to be on that IP address so if you log off Mom and Dad’s Wifi and you log into your own Wi-Fi then that’s going to be a different IP address so when you start tipping off the system that you’re not necessarily a part of the household then Netflix will more than likely prompt you to upgrade your account
You might also be told to add a profile to your account so that the user preferences are still saved but you are going to more than likely have to pay for an additional user that isn’t within the household so Netflix has now updated their definition to include a group of people living together in a single household so if you’ve moved away because of college or whatever other reason then you’re no longer considered living in that household so then in answering the question would it be illegal for your parents to share their Netflix password with you?
If you’re off to college and you’re no longer living in that household, well then yes it could be illegal because you are not part of that household and Netflix gets to determine you know what it means for people in a household so more than likely your parents might have to pay for the additional profile when prompted to do so but let’s say that you’re still living at your parents house and maybe you have a room in the Attic or the basement or you live in a back house or in an additional dwelling unit in the back of your parents house and you are using their Wi-Fi and you’re accessing the Netflix account would that be considered as part of a household?
Now, I would definitely say that this is still part of a single household so you would be able to access the Netflix account without much issue now should you expect the FBI to be knocking at your door in case you make a mistake or or you’re not creating your own account and you’re sharing with someone else well I am not sure exactly how active the FBI is.
FBI is not in knocking on other people’s doors I don’t necessarily think that they’re very active in pursuing these types of criminals but if you want to save yourself the headache then you probably should just be creating your own account and this way you don’t have to worry about anybody knocking at your door because you have committed a crime so what is the bottom line what is the take-home message here?
You should not be sharing your password your Netflix password with anybody outside of your household because yes it is considered a crime so why exactly is it a crime to share your Netflix password the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act so earlier in this video when I said Can the FBI knock at your door if you are password sharing well since it is a federal crime they technically could well maybe that’s an answer you don’t want to find out the hard way so what else is there to know about the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act now one of the more important cases relating to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is Van Buren versus the United States and in that case there was someone involved in law enforcement and they were paid by somebody to access the database so that they find information on a particular person now the issue of that case revolved around whether Van Buren a police officer exceeded his authorized access to the database by then accessing files that were technically off limit to him so what do you think tell me in the comments below should Van Buren be guilty in this case of exceeding his authorized access or was he within his right to access the more private information that he was seeking to find even though he was authorized to use the database General well if you’re somebody that thinks that Van Buren should be found guilty and then you agree with the Supreme Court the Supreme Court said that Van Buren definitely exceeded his authorized access by gaining access to files that were technically off limits to him so he really had no business accessing these files the court is basically saying that Van Buren abused his authorized access to gain entry into the portal and looking for certain files on a particular person was definitely exceeded his authorized access and that means that neither should you so many of us have police friends or lawyer friends that you think maybe can just access portals or access documents that you want to see if you’re somebody who’s put in this position maybe you need to think twice about are you going to be getting into trouble should you be doing this is this what you want to do are you going to find yourself in Van Buren’s situation.
So to sum it all up the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act makes it illegal for anybody to access a computer or a computer system without authorization but so how does this video tie back to intellectual property the thing that yours truly is very excited to always talk about well if you have files that are very sensitive that involve intellectual property or trade secrets you should definitely put those on very very secure files within your system so that means that if you have lots of employees that have access to a database you should make the intellectual property and Trade Secrets files or any other very private information you should still make them even more private maybe something requiring an extra password so that you are not at risk of somebody opening those files even though they have authorized access to the portal but not necessarily to those files so if this video was helpful make sure you give me a thumbs up down below and you also say things by pushing the things button down below I’ll show you right here how to do that and if you want to join me in the next trademark Master Class make sure you sign up secure your spot before they’re all gone scroll down I’d love to talk to you it’s always free to send me an email as well and don’t forget to catch this video right here as it’s a great continuation and follow-up to this video or to learn more about business law on the internet
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