Sharing is Caring......or not.. at least according to Netflix, pay up.

[darknessblade]

11 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

Trying to return to some semblance of growth to look good for shareholders?

Sadly this will only cause a short time growth for about 3 months max.

 

as people will realize that they suddenly have to pay extra. thus Cancelling their subscription

[Master Disaster]

6 hours ago, mr moose said:

 

I want to sell you an orange, we will even cut it for you for a small price, but you are not allowed to share your half with anyone else even though you already paid not only for the fruit but to have it cut and delivered. 

False equivalency. Oranges are not subject to strict licenses for copyright and distribution rights.

[pas008]

i'm going to go on the the other side of this

 

users are abusing this which is stealing technically

 

seriously company is greedy but come on people its fucking cheap as fuck to have your own and if you cant afford it you are entitled to use someone elses?

 

you use their email, their facebook, do you use same bank account also

geez come on pay for something you use

you arent entitled to it

[Helpful Tech Witch]

I’m confused. 
This has been against tos (or Eula, one of the two, don’t know what it’s called in this case) since Netflix did digital streaming, and they’re reminding you of such.

not sure why your mad at this, they’re not doing anything shady, illegal, or wrong in any way

[wanderingfool2]

Could be wrong, don't want to look into this that much as I don't have netflix anymore; so can't be bothered.  How I would implement this is just monitoring where the device is connecting from, thus not eliminating actual use cases.  e.g. device 1 connects with IP A, device 2 connects with IP A and IP B/C/D (all okay permitted), device 3 connects with IP B (not okay, kick off system), device 4 connects with IP A originally but remains on IP B and doesn't reconnect with IP A (kick device offline, need to connect using IP A).

 

A bit of analysis and I bet they could easily figure out who is sharing vs who is using it while on business or just away from their house.

 

3 hours ago, jagdtigger said:

Yet another BS move from a greedy company, what a surprise.....

Explain why you feel it is greedy?  They are offering a service, the service is being shared (by sharing a password) with people outside of a household.  At that point it pretty much is theft of service.  They are trying to prevent that.

 

The fact is, if lets say they even get an extra 5% up-tick if they were to do so that would mean the difference from raising the price vs not.  There are multiple people who I know that actively share their streaming services.  It never feels right with me.  It's okay if you go over to the friends and you all watch a movie, but intentionally leaving it on so they can use it as well isn't right.

[cmndr]

8 hours ago, whispous said:

It will result in fewer extra subscriptions than they hope. It's expensive and people have less money now than last year.

I'm going off of the US -https://www.statista.com/statistics/186833/average-television-use-per-person-in-the-us-since-2002/

People watch about 3 hours of TV a day and

Historically when income has gone down in the US, money spent on movies and entertainment went up. It's cheaper than going out to a bar or sending children to summer camp.

These actions might decrease the number of people with access to Netflix but it'll almost surely increase revenue. Netflix is relatively cheap.

[Heliian]

7 hours ago, Kisai said:

They're probably getting feedback/whine from the hollywood (and only hollywood

Netflix is beyond caring about what Hollywood thinks, this is just Netflix bottom line that they're trying to pad.  They are aggressively trying to publish their own content. 

 

I've already contemplated leaving Netflix as I have a bunch of other services already so any out of step increases and I'm off the platform. 

[Dabombinable]

So what about friends sharing and splitting the bill? All watching are contributing to the bill so if Netflix really tries to pull this shit - they can get fucked.

[wanderingfool2]

18 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

So what about friends sharing and splitting the bill? All watching are contributing to the bill so if Netflix really tries to pull this shit - they can get fucked.

If they are all living together then it won't matter.  If they live in other households then they don't have any right to be mad.

 

An analogy would be buying one movie ticket, but bringing in 2 people with a single ticket.

[Donut417]

5 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

If they live in other households then they don't have any right to be mad.

The issue is Netflix knew people were sharing years ago. They even said it was OK. You cant put the genie back in the bottle that easily. They should have been dealing with the issue years ago. Instead of saying its OK just to pull the rug out from under people. 

 

Also they have no way of knowing who's sharing or not. They cant do it based on IP's, because what If I choose to go on vacation? I live with my folks, they will use the service as well, even if Im on vacation and I might choose to use it while on vacation. 

 

The fact is piracy will again regain its popularity. Netflix honestly did a lot of reduce piracy but corporate greed will again cause people to pirate. VPN subscriptions are cheap and as long as you go for the right one, they cant do shit. 

[Kisai]

3 hours ago, pas008 said:

i'm going to go on the the other side of this

 

users are abusing this which is stealing technically

 

Are you stealing if you visit your friends house and watch their TV? No.

Yet, if you do this on Twitch or Youtube, now you are. 

 

That's the problem with the "account sharing" concept. It's the former, not the latter. Hollywood and the recording industry wants every person to pay every single time they watch or listen to their content. You don't own it, you can't lend it, you can't borrow it, you can't watch it with a friend.

 

You know what would solve a lot of this? sub-accounts. That works in netflix's favor by getting better telemetry and statistics on their users usage, and consequently can enable another highly-requested feature. Adding your friends to your account to actually do a watch party.

 

Let's describe the two separate-but-similar concepts.

 

Sub-accounts, are for your family members, and those who live inside your house. You as the account holder must login to each device once, and indicate who the primary user(s) of that device are. If your family members accidently lose or sell/giveaway the device, then deactivate that device from the account, or hit the "deactivate all devices not on my network", that will tell netflix to revoke the session keys for those other devices.

 

Friends, works a little differently. If you add a friend, you can login to THEIR device and watch using YOUR account, or you can manually add them via a friend code that THEIR device will generate. So essentially the friend has a "expired" netflix account on their device. Now "why would you do this" you might ask, which leads to the "watch party" problem that needs to be addressed. Now whenever YOU are watching something, your friends will get a "username is watching (show)", and if they have a non-expired netflix account, they can watch along with YOU at the exact same point you're at, OR, if they have not subscribed YOU can gift them a subscription to watch along. (Which at least gives a better reason to accomplish what Netflix has proposed here.)

 

Which leads to the last thing that needs to be addressed. What if you have more than 5 friends, and want to host a watch party, just for the shows YOU are watching and controlling. For that I propose "broadcast watch party" code. Which simply tells the other users with netflix (regardless of what region they are in) to follow the "host's actions" with that code (you don't have to be friends, and the broadcast code expires when the host clicks "cancel broadcast watch party."  

 

Like I kid you not, the amount of unauthorized "watch parties" being done over discord right now is basically because nobody has figured out a good way to watch the same content together, because the damned licensing model music, film and television shows have decided upon is inconvenient at best, and impossible at worst. So back to either just pirating the content and watching it together that way or having someone pirate it and broadcast it on discord.

 

I'm sure netflix may eventually discover watch parties. Amazon Prime has, but hasn't quite figured how to communicate to it's users how to do it.

 

[Dabombinable]

1 hour ago, wanderingfool2 said:

If they are all living together then it won't matter.  If they live in other households then they don't have any right to be mad.

 

An analogy would be buying one movie ticket, but bringing in 2 people with a single ticket.

I'm paying half of the bill - and we are paying for 4 screens, aka paying for 4 tickets.

Your analogy would be akin to the way people stole their neighbours cable TV in the 90's.

[GhostRoadieBL]

This is an overreaching act trying to compensate for lost sub$ to the other dozen services.

Wouldn't be so bad if streaming services weren't acting like cable channel packages, the main reason people share accounts is due to cost vs content access, more services reduce the available content on each and the services have marched the cost higher and higher leading to the simple fact that the market price doesn't match the demand anymore.

Jacking up the price per additional screens is what prevented satellite television from taking off.

 

Just waiting for the slippery slope down to isp "packaging" services and we're right back to paid cable tv with ads and addons just to watch old content.

[Stahlmann]

15 hours ago, Helpful Tech Wiard said:

I’m confused. 
This has been against tos (or Eula, one of the two, don’t know what it’s called in this case) since Netflix did digital streaming, and they’re reminding you of such.

not sure why your mad at this, they’re not doing anything shady, illegal, or wrong in any way

Wheter it's legal or not, many netflix subscriptions only exist because people share cost. When it's not possible anymore because they include some approval process there will be a lot of subscriptions that will be cancelled because many user will simply decide it's not worth it anymore. It's about netflix making a dumb move, not some legal shit.

 

I only have Netflix because i can share the 16,99€ a month with a few friends. If i have to pay it alone i'll cancel it because it's not worth that much to me. Instead of gaining 3 subscriptions out of this, they will simply lose 1.

[mr moose]

19 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

False equivalency. Oranges are not subject to strict licenses for copyright and distribution rights.

 

The issue is not licensing.  The fee covers licensing for all content on X number of screens,  so license and copyright is already charged and paid for.

[Sauron]

That's stupid, how can they tell if it's a different "household" or just me logging in at my grandma's house?

22 hours ago, suicidalfranco said:

Guys, Guys, Guys, I know that what Netflix is doing is indefensible, that no living person with a shred of common sense would take their stand, but guys, listen to me, this is the LTT forum so, obligatory,  I don't like to do it either, but I'm obliged to do it:

  Reveal hidden contents

THEIR PLATFORM, THEIR RULES

I mean yeah, their platform, their rules, their lost subscribers. If you don't think they should be able to do this, may I interest you in copyright abolition?

[MageTank]

I wouldn't mind this if it were already packaged into their ever increasing prices. Right now, Netflix has increased to over $20 a month for my plan (4k, 4 simultaneous streams) which is up from the $18 last year and the $16 the year before that.

 

If you want to create new plans to give customers more, I am all for it. Just stop increasing the prices of the plan I already pay for because you believe this is the answer to raking in more revenue. I don't need Netflix making another Ryan Reynolds movie and justifying the film quality as the reason I need to pay more per month. Do not weaponize Ryan Reynolds against me...

[Master Disaster]

4 hours ago, mr moose said:

 

The issue is not licensing.  The fee covers licensing for all content on X number of screens,  so license and copyright is already charged and paid for.

C'mon dude, I know that you realise how dumb this statement is, you're way smarter than that. The fee covers the license for the person paying it, the terms allow accounts to be shared between family members who live in the same household, not between a group of 10 friends who are not even related at all and certainly don't live together.

 

You can be unhappy about it (personally IDGAF since I don't watch Netflix anyway) but you cannot say its unwarranted. As stated above, their house, their rules, their loss when all the people that currently are sharing accounts all unsubscribe at the same time.

[Dabombinable]

3 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

C'mon dude, I know that you realise how dumb this statement is, you're way smarter than that. The fee covers the license for the person paying it, the terms allow accounts to be shared between family members who live in the same household, not between a group of 10 friends who are not even related at all and certainly don't live together.

 

You can be unhappy about it (personally IDGAF since I don't watch Netflix anyway) but you cannot say its unwarranted. As stated above, their house, their rules, their loss when all the people that currently are sharing accounts all unsubscribe at the same time.

4 friends sharing a subscriptions cost of $22.99, only 4 screens ever being used at once (realistically less due to other streaming services).

BTW one of the reasons for sharing is the fact that the cheapest plan only does SD video for 1 screen. If you want 1080p than you pay an extra $6 - but then you have an extra screen added that'll never get used unless shared with someone else. Single screen 1080p is all most people want to pay - but you get the cable/satellite TV treatment instead:

[TetraSky]

So.... What if I want to watch netflix outside of my home? That's not allowed? I can bring my phone elsewhere. I can connect to my account on a friend's smart TV and many things. Could be someone separated from their ex and have a kid that they share custody who wants access to their shows in both homes... This whole vendetta Netflix has against password sharing will just hurt them in the end, all because they want more and more money.
Wouldn't be surprised if they start asking for a subscription for each and every devices you want to watch on.

[Kisai]

2 hours ago, TetraSky said:

Wouldn't be surprised if they start asking for a subscription for each and every devices you want to watch on.

That's what Hollywood wants. That's also what the music recording industry wants. That's already how it works for console games.

 

Anyway. This is just trying to solve the wrong problem.

 

Solve the problem of how to legitimately do a watch party first. Because that will create more subscriptions. That will mean strong-arming certain content sources to have global access on day 1.

 

And they better figure out how to do it quick, because their lunch is going to be eaten.

https://www.teleparty.com/

[Master Delta Chief]

I don't think it should be repeated, but practices like these will push people further into pirating content that said platform produces/offers. This is simply out of greed, nothing more. They have garnered a lot of money over the past two years so they can basically shut the hell up about that. I'd consider this to be more of a malpractice towards consumers at the end. Just let people share their accounts. If they're paying for it, then that's that. No need to increase the price for that. Life's already expensive so why need to make it more difficult for others to enjoy some entertainment. 

 

Oh and before they start with that this is simply out of security for the user, it's their responsibility. If their account gets hacked because of the sharing, it's a risk you are going to take regardless. It's up to the platform to implement PROPER security checks to ensure that it doesn't happen or at the very least minimize it. 

[mr moose]

13 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

C'mon dude, I know that you realise how dumb this statement is, you're way smarter than that. The fee covers the license for the person paying it, the terms allow accounts to be shared between family members who live in the same household, not between a group of 10 friends who are not even related at all and certainly don't live together.

 

You can be unhappy about it (personally IDGAF since I don't watch Netflix anyway) but you cannot say its unwarranted. As stated above, their house, their rules, their loss when all the people that currently are sharing accounts all unsubscribe at the same time.

 

I was supporting the idea that netflix themselves sell screen limit packages. therefore they permit the use of up to X number of screens as part of the package..  Therefore we are not talking about 10 people using a 4 screen package, we are talking about netflix charging for 4 screens and the subscriber using 4 screens. 

 

In that context all licensing issues are not a valid reason to limit location of said screens.   The problem here is password sharing and the overlap between 2 people buying 1 screen and sharing it versus 4 people buying 4 screens and using it accordingly.    The former is akin to what wanderfool pointed out earlier, the later does not exceed the limits imposed according to the service legitimately paid for. 

[Master Disaster]

2 hours ago, mr moose said:

 

I was supporting the idea that netflix themselves sell screen limit packages. therefore they permit the use of up to X number of screens as part of the package..  Therefore we are not talking about 10 people using a 4 screen package, we are talking about netflix charging for 4 screens and the subscriber using 4 screens. 

 

In that context all licensing issues are not a valid reason to limit location of said screens.   The problem here is password sharing and the overlap between 2 people buying 1 screen and sharing it versus 4 people buying 4 screens and using it accordingly.    The former is akin to what wanderfool pointed out earlier, the later does not exceed the limits imposed according to the service legitimately paid for. 

I mean sure but I'm pretty sure the ToS does specifically say that shared screens have to be used in the same house and by a family. Remember, we're dealing with greedy executives in the Movie & TV industry here, do you honestly think they're gonna be OK with you paying for something then giving it to all your friends for free?

 

The closest parity example I can think of is, you know how Satellite & Cable companies will sell you a second subscription and box for much cheaper than full price so you can watch TV in your bedroom? Imagine trying to tell them that you're not doing anything wrong by giving that box to your neighbour. It wouldn't work.

[mr moose]

3 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

I mean sure but I'm pretty sure the ToS does specifically say that shared screens have to be used in the same house and by a family. Remember, we're dealing with greedy executives in the Movie & TV industry here, do you honestly think they're gonna be OK with you paying for something then giving it to all your friends for free?

 

The closest parity example I can think of is, you know how Satellite & Cable companies will sell you a second subscription and box for much cheaper than full price so you can watch TV in your bedroom? Imagine trying to tell them that you're not doing anything wrong by giving that box to your neighbour. It wouldn't work.

If you bought a 2 box package and gave 1 to your neighbor did you not pay for that 2nd box? Does that box suddenly become stolen content because you let your neighbor watch it instead of having it in your bedroom?  No one is giving anything to some one for free,  all the screens have been paid for already.   What's next, you're not allowed to have friends around to watch a movie unless they all have a sub too?

 

I am a big proponent of CR law and protecting IP owners, anyone who's had any discussion with me on the topic knows this.   I am happy for a company to charge whatever they want for people to watch their content, I am not happy with them also dictating which house I have to be in to watch it.   That goes a just a tad too far, especially when they have already sold me a legitimate license to said content.