Sunday, April 24, 2016

Password Sharing: Legal-ish, but Not Embattled


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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