For Netflix, one of the largest TV series and movie platforms in the world, 2022 was a very painful year. The platform, which lost more and more users every month, tried to minimize its loss by laying off some of its employees. The platform also started to test the system that it would remove the account sharing feature in 2023 and pay an extra fee if more than one individual uses the same account.
Today, according to the information in the “piracy guide” published by the UK Intellectual Property Office, sharing the Netflix password can now be considered a crime.
You can go to jail for sharing a password
In the guide published by the UK Intellectual Property Office, it is stated that, starting from 2023, sharing the Netflix password with non-paying users will be considered as “free and pirated viewing of paid content”, and the piracy crime can be seen in court as both a criminal case and a civil lawsuit. Under UK law, citizens can be fined in criminal cases, depending on the extent of the crime, but if this crime turns into a civil lawsuit, the citizens’ fines are canceled and they are given a direct prison sentence. So just because you gave your Netflix password to your friend, you are likely to go to jail.
Of course, there is no certainty in this manual. In other words, in order for these lawsuits to be filed, Netflix must identify these users and file a complaint and sue, especially with the UK government. In the past months, Netflix, which wants to strictly prevent users from sharing passwords with its profile transfer device management features, stated in a statement to the BBC that it will not sue its users.
Netflix, which is expected to permanently ban password sharing in the first months of 2023, may soon require similar laws to be implemented in all countries where it provides services.
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