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Tennessee Makes it Illegal To Share Your Netflix Password

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Re: Tennessee Makes it Illegal To Share Your Netflix Password

#31

Post by lotharbot »

jim_h wrote: post #12
mike-cardwell wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. This is completely addressable using technology. No need to turn people into criminals. Why can't they just prevent any one account from viewing more than N videos simultaneously? Could make N 1 by default, and then charge people for family packs where N is higher than 1.

They already limit the number of concurrent streaming videos. Last time I checked, N == 1. (Other packages might have different options.)

one-disc plans allow one stream. two-disc plans allow two simultaneous streams. four streams is the maximum.

Re: Tennessee Makes it Illegal To Share Your Netflix Password

#32

Post by dclowd9901 »

lotharbot wrote: post #29
lukejduncan wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't NetFlix specifically allow you to have mutliple users on an account? I'd be curious if NetFlix was actually involved in the lobbying that became this law.

http://www.netflix.com/FAQ?p_faqid=2902 says you can have up to six devices authorized for one account, and you can use up to [# of discs in your plan] simultaneously, to a maximum of 4. http://www.netflix.com/TermsOfUse#instant specifies that this is "within your household".

I'm pretty sure your use of Netflix terms of service is between you and Netflix, not you and local law enforcement. It's a private contract.

Re: Tennessee Makes it Illegal To Share Your Netflix Password

#33

Post by anamax »

ck2 wrote: post #3

How on earth would people legally sell netflix passwords in bulk anyway? This was something that needed to be addressed on the state level because no other laws were being broken in the process? But spam is okay? The lobbyist force these industries have must be insanely powerful and expensive. Well, one more law that the people arresting and judging you are probably breaking themselves or their kids are. I'm pretty s…

> I'm pretty sure the future of law enforcement is to make sure everyone is breaking some law at some point and they can basically arrest and prosecute you at any time, so you best obey, citizen.

That's not "the future", it's been true for a long time.

Re: Tennessee Makes it Illegal To Share Your Netflix Password

#34

Post by cygwin98 »

jcampbell1 wrote: post #30
cygwin98 wrote: post #13

I used to have a rosy glass over democracy as I came from China. However, news like this really pissed me off. A lot of those representatives are not working for the people who voted them, but rather the big corporates or whichever lobby groups. How come lobbying is even legal in the first place? It's actually glorified bribery. Please forgive me if I'm being a bit cynical here.

Lobbyists are just advocates for a cause. It is illegal for lobbyists to pay bribes. It is pretty easy to undo this type of legislation. All you have to do is send a direct mail campaign against a few state senators with the title "Joe Sentator is turning your child into a criminal... Have you ever shared an online password? Joe thinks you deserve 1 year in jail." It would probably cost around $10k to roast a few sta…

My issue with this approach is that those senators or whatever level of representatives won't be punished by doing so. A common technique I observed these years is that they will initially propose a shooting-for-moon bill/bylaws/regulations, then everyone gets concerned and asks them to undo it. They will tone down and pretend to listen to the public, but counter-argue with some "authoritative" proofs given by certain professors or whatever scholars/lawyers/domain experts (often bought out by the same lobby group), then they concede with lesser intrusive proposal but still achieve their hidden goal. They will always look calm and charming, that on the contrary makes the angry public look irrational and ignorant. Most of the time, they can get away as the winner. Even if they didn't pull it off, they didn't lose anything. It is like they are playing an "I'm not touching you" trick to the public.

If you follow the recent Internet UBB issue in Canada, you will see how it pans out. Nobody in CRTC is going to resign for doing such a ploy.

Re: Tennessee Makes it Illegal To Share Your Netflix Password

#36

Post by lukejduncan »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #32
lotharbot wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.netflix.com/FAQ?p_faqid=2902 says you can have up to six devices authorized for one account, and you can use up to [# of discs in your plan] simultaneously, to a maximum of 4. http://www.netflix.com/TermsOfUse#instant specifies that this is "within your household".

I'm pretty sure your use of Netflix terms of service is between you and Netflix, not you and local law enforcement. It's a private contract.

Does this law have provisions for "enablers"? Can Tennessee go after NetFlix for encouraging users to break the law (multi-user accounts)?

More importantly, if there is a dragnet investigation and a dorm room gets arrested for sharing NetFlix with each other, can they still go to jail if they abided by the TOS?

Re: Tennessee Makes it Illegal To Share Your Netflix Password

#37

Post by anamax »

impendia wrote: post #17

"Republican Gov. Bill Haslam [who signed the bill] told reporters earlier this week that he wasn't familiar with the details of the legislation, but..." I feel like this says it all.

What fraction of legislation do you think that the "best" governor understands?

Re: Tennessee Makes it Illegal To Share Your Netflix Password

#38

Post by graywh »

generalk wrote: post #20
markwweaver wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article does say that it is mostly to combat people harvesting and selling large number of accounts/passwords which seems reasonable to me. It is scary that they could go after people sharing with a friend with up to a year in jail though.

> The article does say that it is mostly to combat people > harvesting and selling large number of accounts/passwords > which seems reasonable to me. It seems reasonable that there be a law against that? Reasonable: Netflix TOS allows them to terminate your account if you're found in violation. Unreasonable: TN law allows criminal charges to be brought against you, potentially incurring fines and jail time and almost…

Reasonable?: Netflix will terminate the stolen account you're "borrowing" and you never get penalized.

chopsueyar makes a good point: how will they even prosecute the real criminals?

Re: Tennessee Makes it Illegal To Share Your Netflix Password

#39

Post by sfk »

In other news (http://www.japanrailpass.net/eng/en008.html):

"Use of a JAPAN RAIL PASS is strictly limited to the signer (hereafter "you") only."

Surely an outrageous clause like this one can only be the product of big corporations and corrupt politicians. What about "the right to travel"?

Re: Tennessee Makes it Illegal To Share Your Netflix Password

#40

Post by pak »

impendia wrote: post #17

"Republican Gov. Bill Haslam [who signed the bill] told reporters earlier this week that he wasn't familiar with the details of the legislation, but..." I feel like this says it all.

This is unfortunately the rule, not the exception. If you ever have checked out any of these laws that go before a US legislature they are generally hundreds of pages long and a very dry read. Even the legislator that is sponsoring the bill likely has not read the whole thing in detail, but only the summary prepared by his team of aides, and has relied on many other people to write up his drafted law. Probably the only people that read and can understand these new laws in full are prosecutors and other lawyers.
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