this year Netflix He made sure that, little by little, users stopped sharing their passwords. What many did not expect was that this practice would be considered illegal in the UK.
to me BBCThe British Intellectual Property Office (IPO) explains that the actor shares passwords to streaming accounts violates copyright law. Although this information appeared, the agency decided to remove it from its website, since neither Netflix nor other streaming services have officially taken legal action against their users.
However, the IPO confirmed that this aspect was not completely eliminated, as sharing passwords would have civil and criminal consequences. “There are a variety of provisions in criminal and civil law that may apply where a password is shared when the intent is to allow the user access without payment for the copyrighted work. These provisions may include breach of contract, fraud, or secondary copyright infringement, depends on the situation.“, he added.
If possible, the British authorities suggest that the Crown Prosecution Service itself could step in to open a judicial process. Any decision to charge someone for sharing passwords to a streaming service will be on a case-by-case basis, taking into account the individual context and the facts of each.Prosecutors explained.
Even if they considered sharing passwords a crime, they acknowledged that the criminal consequences would only end in the most extreme scenario. Initially, she was tempted to initiate a police investigation before the prosecution intervened. However, there are still no records indicating that they have investigated any suspicious users. It should also be remembered that Netflix itself must file charges against users accused of this crime; Although there is no such case yet.
According to Netflix data, 100 million potential subscribers use its services through a borrowed account. To deal with this, they have confirmed to launch a cheaper and ad-supported plan to catch the attention of questionable subscribers. They also preferred to ban users rather than go to something more extreme.
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