Is It Illegal to Share Your Netflix Password?
Streaming services like those offered by Disney and Hulu need to balance a desire to grow subscribers with a reluctance to anger customers
Raise your hand if you share your Netflix password. Now, quick — put your hand down before Disney sees you. When the company launches its Disney+ service later this year, it will begin what it calls “piracy mitigation” on day one, in part by preventing users from sharing passwords. Which raises the question: Is it really piracy to share your streaming login info with someone else?
If you were hoping to share your subscription with your nephew, you might run the risk of earning the Mouse’s ire.
In a joint press release between Disney and Charter Communications, the monolithic media giant stated that it would “implement business rules and techniques to address such issues as unauthorized access and password sharing.” In other words, if you were hoping to share your subscription with your nephew, you might run the risk of earning the Mouse’s ire.
What form that ire could take is anyone’s guess right now. In fact, it’s unclear how Disney might track who’s sharing passwords in the first place…
