Sunday is a big night for HBO fans, with “Game of
Thrones,” “Veep,” and “Silicon Valley” all on deck for new seasons. And though
many of their viewers are watching unofficially, HBO execs—along with other
streaming media leaders—don’t seem to care.
To be fair, many viewers without HBO
accounts aren’t taking to Pirate Bay, the high seas of the internet, to
illegally download their content. Most are just sharing account details with
someone they know who does pay for HBO. But while the password sharing that goes
on with streaming services is a legal gray area, companies are not interested
in going after customers. In fact, they often support it.
More
than: HBO’s CEO has gone as far as to call the practice “better than an emmy,” stating that it doesn’t seem to be hurting sales.
Which
is kind of shocking. Some estimates have the economic losses of these practices as high as a half-billion dollars. “Game
of Thrones” in particular, has repeatedly earned the crown of “most pirated TV show,” with more viewers pirating it than watching it via HBO in past seasons. And the idea that people
would share passwords to watch the fantasy show is so prevalent a practice that
even The New York Times ran an article proudly proclaiming that no subscription was no problem.
Which is only partially true. Most streaming services
have terms of service that mention password sharing: HBO warns its customers to “not permit the disclosure of any
username or password to any person,” but allows subscription sharing within a(n
ill-defined) household. Hulu limits only one video to stream at a time on the account, creating an organic cap.
Amazonexpects password sharing within households,
defining that as two adults and four children who all live together. Netflix
actually takes a bit more of a laissez faire attitude,
expecting users to share passwords andtransferring all liability for the repercussions of that
to them.
Some
have called the act of violating these terms of service even with something as
seemingly minor as giving out your password as a violation of the Computer
Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), which prohibits “knowingly accessing a computer without
authorization or exceeding authorized access.” It may also technically be a violation of the DMCA’s anti-circumvention clause. But
so far the only place the practice is explicitly illegal is in Tennessee, under a web entertainment theft law passed in 2011.
But
most users won’t be reported to authorities, even if the password sharing seems
like a decidedly un-gray area of the law—at least, not by the streaming
companies themselves. Part of that is that the practice is very difficult for companies to police. But
they also seem to view it as “illegal-ish” in the short-term, and revenue boosting in
the long-term.
“It’s
not that we’re unmindful of it, it just has no impact on the business,” HBO CEO
Richard Plepler said at a 2014 Buzzfeed event. “[In
many ways it’s a] a “terrific marketing vehicle for the next generation of
viewers…We’re in the business of creating addicts.”
The
practice by most streaming companies is similar to that of Netflix “cracking down” on VPNs: The
streaming giant’s goal is to get as many eyeballs as they can on their content.
But they’ve got to put on some “best effort” practices to appease the license
holders.
In some
ways this seems pioneering: Television has increasingly moved online,
especially amongst younger viewers (who are also the worst password sharers,
apparently). Encouraging that community viewing experience would generate a lot
of “addicts” to their programming. And in the age of peak TV, many
online streaming shows—be they set in Westeros or Washington, D.C.—have held
onto that “must see TV” crown thatmost networks seem to have forsaken. In
that sense, it’s a different flavor of the 30 days of premium channels that
come with some cable purchases.
But
it’s possible that down the line streaming companies do an about face. After
all, many surveys of younger users who share passwords don’t seem to ever
anticipate changing their habits, even when they have more disposable income
and TV becomes less about a cable subscription. Users between the ages of 18
and 24 may just be furthering their own belief that content on the Internet
should be free.
“I probably wouldn’t pay for
my own. If my parents dropped, I’d use a friend’s password. If they dropped,
I’d use a different friend’s password. There’s like an infinite number of
passwords I could use and not pay for it,” said one college-level respondent in a Parks Associate survey.
At that
point streaming companies might feel like it’s less worthwhile for them to do
anything to get digital services in front of customers. Whether that stems from
licensing issues or just more extensive protection of their product remains to
be seen. But in the meantime chaos isn’t a pit, it’s trying to figure out which
friend is using your account when you’re trying to watch your programs.
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