
Tennessee Makes it Illegal To Share Your Netflix Password - chopsueyar
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110601/ap_on_hi_te/us_password_sharing_crackdown
======
RyanMcGreal
In other news, the lawnmowing industry has successfully lobbied the state
government to pass a groundbreaking law making it a criminal offence to loan
your lawnmower to a neighbour. The practice of lawnmowersharing is claimed,
according to an industry-funded study, to cost the industry $10 billion a year
in lost revenue.

"Now that everyone who wants to enjoy a mowed lawn has to come clean and buy
or rent their own lawnmower, we can finally put an end to the harmful piracy
that has been driving the lawnmowing industry to the brink of collapse," said
Dr. Lawrence Angelo, an industry spokesperson.

The barbecue industry is watching this closely as it attempts to secure
passage of a law that would uphold barbecue terms-of-use restrictions
preventing barbecue owners from flagrantly cooking food for dinner guests
without a multi-user licence.

~~~
cruise02
The scenarios you're describing seem a lot more like libraries loaning out
physical copies of books, each of which can only be used by one person at a
time. I think loaning out your NetFlix password is more akin to cable theft
than to loaning out physical objects. If you're giving out your password to
all of your friends, you're basically acting as a content distributor.

Still, I see no reason why this needs to be a law. NetFlix terms of service
should cover it.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
FYI in the 1800s, the publishing industry tried to shut down public libraries
by lobbying governments to make it illegal for people to read books without
first paying for them.

~~~
cruise02
Did they want to make it illegal for people to read books without paying for
them, or did they want to make it illegal to loan them out? There's a world of
difference, particularly now that we're extrapolating that to digital media.

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impendia
"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.

~~~
markkanof
This is really all too common. You always hear politicians say things like
"Well I'm not familiar with that issue specifically...so many pieces of
legislation pass by my desk I really can't review them all." It's true that
you can't expect one person to comprehend every issue at a deep level. But
politicians shouldn't be rubber stamping things just to build up enough
"credits" to get their next piece of legislation passed through.

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ck2
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 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.

~~~
Refringe
That's not what the law is meant to prevent. It's meant to prevent me from
sharing my online service (Netflix) account with my mother. It's meant to
persuade me to tell my mother to get her own account. Clearly these people
don't love their mothers.

~~~
lukejduncan
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.

~~~
lotharbot
<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".

~~~
dclowd9901
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.

~~~
lotharbot
From the exact same Tennessee law, a person commits the offense of theft of
services who: "(3) Knowingly absconds from establishments where compensation
for services is ordinarily paid immediately upon the rendering of them,
including hotels, motels and restaurants, without payment or a bona fide offer
to pay."

Your stay at a hotel or meal at a restaurant is private business between you
and that hotel/restaurant. Local law enforcement only gets involved if you
choose not to pay.

------
kalleboo
I don't see what justification there is for this being a law. It's simple
enough to make it part of the Terms of Service, and then terminate the
accounts of anyone who's logged in on more than 10 IP addresses at the same
time.

It's fundamentally different from the old "theft of cable" laws where the
service provider doesn't have full control over the signal/content.

~~~
mike-cardwell
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.

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

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

~~~
bartonfink
My wife and I have a one disc plan and have streamed two videos
simultaneously.

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cygwin98
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.

~~~
jcampbell1
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 state senators, and neutralize the music
industry lobby. It's just that nobody really cares enough to spend the $10k.

~~~
russell
>> It is illegal for lobbyists to pay bribes.

In the US the bribes are in the form of campaign contributions. No money comes
from the lobbyist, but if the legislator performs, contributions appear from
various PACs (Political Action Committee) and corporations. With millions
flowing to individual cmpaign committees, I despair that meaningful reform is
impossible.

Much legislation is written by lobbyists (or their clients) because the issues
are too complex for legislators or their staffs to understand. Is anyone
surprised that some clause favoring the client or inductry is burried in the
hundreds of pages?

------
lotharbot
The actual bill [0] modifies Tennessee Code 39-14-104 [1] (reproduced in the
bill at "Under present law") in order to include "entertainment services" as a
subset of "services".

Note that the bill does not make it illegal to share your password. It only
makes it illegal to "avoid payment" or give services to "another not entitled"
to them. Netflix TOS allow you to have up to six devices associated with your
account, and to run simultaneous streams up to the number of discs in your
plan [2] within your household [3]. This usage remains legal under the bill.

[0]
[http://wapp.capitol.tn.gov/apps/billinfo/BillSummaryArchive....](http://wapp.capitol.tn.gov/apps/billinfo/BillSummaryArchive.aspx?BillNumber=SB1659&ga=107)

[1]
[http://www.michie.com/tennessee/lpext.dll?f=templates&fn...](http://www.michie.com/tennessee/lpext.dll?f=templates&fn=main-h.htm&cp=tncode)
and navigate to 39 then 14 then 104.

[2] <http://www.netflix.com/FAQ?p_faqid=2902>

[3] <http://www.netflix.com/TermsOfUse#instant>

~~~
_delirium
It's interesting that the law seems to conspicuously exclude from its
definition of "services" any services provided _to_ businesses. So, for
example, it is not a criminal offense in TN if a client stiffs me on a
contract programming or webdesign gig--- that remains a mere contract dispute.
I can pursue it (if I wish) by bringing a civil suit, but the public
prosecutor is not going to haul DeadbeatClientCorp into criminal court for
stealing my services. Not sure why a Netflix TOS violation should be treated
differently.

~~~
lotharbot
I'm not seeing where services delivered to businesses are exempted.

Tennessee Code 39-14-127 (a)(2) is pretty explicit about being stiffed for
services.

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jrockway
Why not just get it over with and send everyone to RIAA-run prison camps?

~~~
markwweaver
That's a bit over dramatic. Just because the RIAA sponsored or endorsed a bill
doesn't mean its necessarily a bad thing.

Can you provide a reason why it's unreasonable for a company to want each
person (or even household) who uses their service to have a separate
subscription?

That being said, I haven't read the bill, and only know what the article says
about it.

~~~
_delirium
Using _criminal law_ to deal with it seems like a fairly over-the-top,
dramatic step to take. It's not necessarily unreasonable for a company to want
each person to have a separate subscription, and they can even mandate it in
their terms of service, and take action to terminate the accounts of people
violating it. But criminal prosecutions for sharing accounts?

~~~
markwweaver
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.

~~~
generalk

      > 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 definitely incurring
legal fees.

~~~
jrockway
We really need help from the Republicans here. They passed laws so that any
time someone wants to do something useful with taxpayer money (build
infrastructure, provide government services), the first step becomes a
10-year-long "alternatives analysis" stage. We need the same thing for new
laws. As an example, before this law can take effect, we need to decide
exactly how much it will cost to investigate, prosecute, and imprison
violators. And, we need to decide where that money is going to become from?
Should we legalize child rape to free up those investigators to go after
Netflix ToS violations? If yes, then make it a law. If no, then let Netflix
worry about its own profits.

------
monochromatic
> The bill, which has been signed by the governor, was pushed by recording
> industry officials to try to stop the loss of billions of dollars to illegal
> music sharing.

If what this bill criminalizes was already "illegal" sharing, then there was
no need for an additional law.

------
albertsun
Pretty stupid move as companies could actually use this knowledge of consumer
behavior to adjust their pricing and increase their profitability.

See Bakos, Brynjolfsson and Lichtman (1998)
<http://digital.mit.edu/erik/sig.pdf> and Varian (1994)
<http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~hal/Papers/sharing.pdf>

------
cabalamat
"The Right To Read"[1] was written as a warning, not a how-to guide.

[1] <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html>

------
jneal
This sounds pretty ridiculous to me, but yet not surprising. I understand that
giving out your password to random people should be illegal, but sharing it
within your own house hold should not. I mean, what if it was illegal for your
friends to watch TV at your house? We pay the cable or satellite company to
give our home service, not us as in a particular person. Netflix I view the
same way. When I rent a 2 day rental from Blockbuster, I can let everyone in
my house watch it with me and I'm not breaking any laws. I can even let a
friend borrow it so long as I can still return it on time. Why wouldn't
Netflix be the same way?

I know it should be illegal to sell passwords in bulk, I have nothing against
that, but why leave laws like this open so that we can start arresting dads
for letting their kids use their Netflix? Stupid...

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ghostDancer
As already said if it's illegal why make another law? Enforce the one you
have.

I feel it like we are one step closer to RMS short story :
<http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html>

Edit: i sent the comment too fast, needed rewrite.

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nextparadigms
Great, now they are now inventing new crimes to protect Big Content's old
business models.

------
Fargren
I don't see how this doesn't encourage piracy.

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graywh
This isn't a new law, but an addendum to an existing law that makes it illegal
to leave a restaurant without paying or steal cable television.

[http://www.tennessean.com/article/20110602/NEWS/306020033/22...](http://www.tennessean.com/article/20110602/NEWS/306020033/2275/RSS05)

------
e03179
<sarcasm> When my group of 8 friends are hungry and want to go eat, we hit up
the buffet at Ryan's Steakhouse. As a group, we only buy one buffet, but we
share it to hell with the others in the group. </sarcasm>

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middayc
hum.. I don't get it:

Why just NetFlix? We all have tens of other passwords that should earn us a
year in prison if shared.

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lotusleaf1987
Was this a real problem? Isn't there something more meaningful these
legislators should be working on like jobs and our economy? What a charade.

------
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"?

~~~
kalleboo
That's completely reasonable. As is Netflix putting "only one household" in
their ToS.

It'd be unreasonable if there was a specific law on the books in Japan that
says if you loan out your rail pass you're branded a criminal (which in the
case of Japan means you're deported for life) and get jail time, instead of
them just taking it away from you and saying "you broke the terms, no more
rail pass for you".

~~~
sfk
I don't think that you necessarily will get jail time. The new law elevates
theft of entertainment services to the same level as theft of other services.
In practice, I think theft of services is mostly punished by a fine.

But _in theory_ , according to the old law you actually _could_ go to jail for
loaning out your rail pass in Tennessee. So actually all the people who are
upset about this law should first focus on the existing law.

