Despite breaking Netflix’s terms of service agreements, many people across the globe regularly share passwords for the streaming platform.
According to a recent survey by Attest, 22.6 per cent of people said they shared their Netflix passwords with others.
Netflix has gradually become stricter on this but has never taken legal action.
However, the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) is now saying that password sharing could be a violation of copyright law.
They said that a variety of terms in criminal and civil law may apply to the act of password sharing, where copyright-protected works are supplied to people who have not paid for them.
This could lead to a breach of contractual terms, fraud, or secondary copyright infringement, but they added that the decision to take legal action belongs to each service provider.
Password sharing and piracy
In guidance issued earlier this week, the IPO said that piracy is a “major issue for the entertainment and creative industries.”
In this, they used password sharing as an example, which they said broke copyright law.
The IPO also indicated that people could theoretically face prosecution from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) for password sharing, but it was suggested that there would first need to be a police investigation.
Despite this, there is currently no indication that any police forces in the UK would investigate someone for sharing their password for Netflix or any other streaming platform.
Additionally, taking legal action is not yet something streaming companies have shown a tendency to do.
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