Think you're being slick and tricking Netflix by using your old roommate's password to get your Orange is the New Black fix? The streaming service is on to you, but it doesn't really mind.
As CNBC reports, Netflix co-founder and CEO Reed Hastings uttered some magical words lots of Netflix users will be happy to hear during the company's third-quarter earnings webcast on Monday:
"In terms of [password sharing], no plans on making any changes there," Hastings said. He went on to say that "password sharing is something you have to learn to live with, because there's so much legitimate password sharing, like you sharing with your spouse, with your kids .... so there's no bright line, and we're doing fine as is," according to a transcript.
His comments come after a federal appeals court in July ruled that sharing a password with another is a federal crime under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. At the time, some surmised that the ruling would make sharing a Netflix password with a friend to watch House of Cards, for instance, illegal. But the case in question centered on whether employees can share their credentials in the workforce in violation of their employer's computer-use policy.
Before you start handing out your Netflix password willy-nilly, though, note that Netflix has concurrent stream limits in place. The $7.99-per-month plan only allows for one stream at a time, the $9.99 plan allows for two, and the $11.99-per-month 4K option permits four concurrent streams. But if you have the two-stream plan and want to give your mom or best friend your login for the second stream, go for it.
Rival services like Hulu and Amazon Video have similar stream restrictions. HBO claims there are "limitations on the number of concurrent streams" for HBO GO and HBO Now, but the premium channel appears to be rather lax about enforcement. To date, streaming services have largely declined to crack down on password sharing among their users.
At this point, Netflix is more concerned about tackling another issue: the use of proxies like VPN services to access content that isn't available in a user's region, a practice the company started cracking down on earlier this year.
"I think we've been very successful in finding technological ways of inhibiting the cross-border VPNs" Hastings reportedly said. "We didn't win the bidding for the [rights to] the Disney movies in the UK, so it's clearly not fair to allow our UK subscribers to watch the Disney from Canada or the US. So we've found, with the help of the studios, some more technology to enforce their rights."
In the future, the company is hoping to get global rights so it can make content available to everyone.