A practice that is now almost normal: giving your best friend the access data for your own Netflix account.

But just because something is practiced frequently doesn't mean it's allowed. So we were asked whether you would be punished if you shared your Netflix account with your best friend.

The inquiry about Netflix
The inquiry about Netflix

“I wanted to ask if that's right... so if I have a Netflix account and give my data to my best friend, for example, will I be punished for it? My having read or heard something like that.
Do you know anything about it??”

The legal situation

In principle, when you purchase a Netflix account for a fee, you acquire the service of being able to watch the service's films and series. You can also watch them together with others, for example on TV. Since you are purchasing this service for yourself, it is not really legitimate to simply grant access to others.

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However, Netflix is ​​aware that in families everyone likes to watch something different at different times: That's why the account can within a household , and several accounts can also be created for several family members so that, for example, a 6-year-old child cannot watch horror series.

Passing on the Netflix account

Now, of course, Netflix earns money from the accounts, somehow the licenses for the films and series, let alone the server costs and the entire environment, have to be paid for. That's why the service is clear in the terms and conditions :

Excerpt from the Netflix Terms and Conditions
Excerpt from the Netflix Terms and Conditions

The Netflix Service and any content viewed through the Service are intended solely for your personal, non-commercial use and may not be shared with anyone other During your Netflix membership, we grant you a limited, non-exclusive and non-transferable right to access the Netflix service and view Netflix content.

Or in short: The account is not transferable, so it cannot be shared with your boyfriend or girlfriend, even if they only live around the corner.

Sharing a Netflix account with another person who does not live in the same household is therefore not a direct criminal offense (within the meaning of the Criminal Code), but is a violation of Netflix's terms and conditions, which could take action against it.

Is Netflix doing something about it?

around 169 million euros a month due to such account piracy . The number is not surprising; according to a survey by Chip and Civey, 84 percent of all Netflix users share their account with at least one other person.

The service also addressed the topic in an interview in October 2019, which can be viewed on YouTube . Accordingly, Netflix is ​​considering various methods of restricting account sharing, such as regular password resets or SMS codes to account holders, but there are no concrete plans yet.

The reason why the company is so careful is
that many users could be put off if they have to identify themselves again every time. Even with the geographical position of a viewer, which can be determined through the IP, it is difficult if, for example, the user always uses the service on the train or repeatedly commutes.

This makes it difficult to clearly link account sharing to an IP. But what can be quickly stopped is the trading of Netflix accounts, which can also be found on the Internet, because it is noticeable when several users from different parts of the world suddenly use one account at the same time.

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But the threat of competition also makes the group cautious:
Disney+, a service that is more than competitive, is launching in Germany in March 2020. So you will have to wait and see how the Disney Group will deal with account sharing before taking your own measures.

Conclusion

Although account sharing clearly violates Netflix's terms and conditions, there are no known cases in which the service has taken strict action. So it's up to everyone to violate the terms and conditions, but sooner or later you have to expect that Netflix won't put up with this in the long term, as their revenue fines from account sharing are already very high.

So it's not really directly punishable, but at least it's unfair... and you don't know if and when Netflix will actually take action and then your own account will suddenly be blocked.


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