It was awful.
It was embarrassing, it was terrible.
My wife had to come post my bail.
My mother heard about it, all my friends herd about it.
It was really terrible.
- [Man] What happened?
- I shared my Netflix password.
(man gasps)
(upbeat music)
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Now first of all, subscribe and hit that bell icon.
Now, technically password sharing is not illegal, probably,
but maybe it is.
Look, I'm not a lawyer, I have no idea.
I'm just going with the best interpretations I can find
and those are, well, they're unclear.
There were a bunch of breathless headlines a few years ago
about it being illegal to share your Netflix password.
But those came from a case that seemed to be
more about corporate espionage
than about sharing your password with your roommate.
The whole thing,
it was based on the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act,
which was enacted in 1984.
And today, in 2019, its relevance
is, well, like I said unclear.
So, if the courts won't tell us,
we'll have to dig into this ourselves.
I looked into the terms of use
of the more popular streaming services out there
and what I found is that they're mostly unclear.
Netflix is pretty clear.
It says that your account is for your personal
and non-commercial use only
and may not be shared with individuals
beyond your household.
Okay, but apparently they're not enforcing that.
You couldn't throw a rock anywhere in America
without hitting someone who shares a Netflix password,
so I'm not really sure what to make of that.
Hulu implies that it doesn't want you to share
passwords outside the home,
but implications aren't legally binding as far as I know.
Instead, Hulu goes the technical route
and says that any streaming outside of your home network
would have to be done on a mobile device,
which would cut down on piggybackers
using their own Rokus or Apple TVs or whatever
to watch it on the big screen.
Sling TV states pretty clearly that
you may not reveal or share
your login credentials with anyone.
But then what about the other simultaneous streamers?
Because if you get the three simultaneous streams
with the Blue package,
I assume they'll all need to login using your info.
And PlayStation Vue.
Then, there's PlayStation Vue
and they don't mention password sharing at all
as far as I could tell.
Anyway, I'm not gonna go through every streaming service.
The point is it's a mess
and there doesn't seem to be any standards.
So if you share do share your password,
what's the worst that can happen?
Well, as a non-lawyer,
I guess it's possible that one of these companies
could come after you.
Personally, I'm not losing any sleep over that possibility.
A crackdown would probably just take the form of
warning emails and then, maybe some account shutdowns
or, more likely, they'll just take the Hulu route
and use technical solutions to try to limit the problem.
Now, when I asked one of these major companies,
which shall remain nameless,
they basically confirmed that view.
So because I'm not a lawyer
and I'm not here to tell you how to interpret something
like a terms of use document,
I'll just tell you what I plan to do.
I'm just gonna stick with the simultaneous
streams rules set up by each company
and for now, I figure I'll probably be okay
because, frankly, Netflix is probably happy
to just create a bunch of Netflix addicts,
even if some of the aren't paying for it
because chances are, eventually, they will.
So, is that thoroughly anonymous figure
from the beginning of the video going to prison?
No.
Sued?
Probably not.
Account shut down?
Maybe.
Maybe one day if they ever crack down.
Are we all just being too acquiescent
by toeing any line at all?
Well, let me know what you think in the comments below.
Do you jealously guard your passwords?
Or do you share them out like candy?
Hit the comments and on your way, give this video a like.
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Thanks for watching, guys.
We'll see you on the next one.
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