Thanks to a Federal Appeals Court, sharing your Netflix password, even with friends and family, may now be a Federal crime.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion last week, determining that an executive search firm employee who used another employee’s password to access the firm’s headhunting software was guilty of three counts of conspiracy to violate the Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
The CFAA had, before now, been intended primarily as an anti-hacking law aimed at preventing nefarious entities from using passwords they’d taken, illicitly, from their victims. Since the executive search firm employee got permission to use his coworker’s password (but without permission from the system’s owner), the Ninth Circuit is likely changing the intent of the law dramatically – in a way that’s dangerous for users who share passwords for things like Netflix and Amazon Prime.
Now, if the ruling stands, whether you share your password or use a shared password (and studies suggest more than 50% of Millennials have), you’ll undoubtedly run afoul of CFAA’s provisions, making your action a Federal crime. Even if its just to use a friend’s HBOgo account to finish up Game of Thrones, or let your parents watch The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt on your Netflix account because they don’t know how to set up their own.
Luckily for users, Netflix and HBO, at least, have said that they don’t consider account piggy-backing enough of a threat to their business to crack down on freeloaders. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings even compared users sharing passwords to families gathering to watch Netflix programming together.
These recent rulings also might prompt the Federal government to give a second look to the CFAA, which has been lovingly called “the worst law in technology.” The Supreme Court could also have a whack at the law, if the affected petitioners decide to pursue further appeals. The Ninth Circuit is, after all, the most reversed Circuit in America.