By Emily Caulkett-
The Uk government agency has revealed that sharing passwords for online streaming services such as Netflix is against the law, according to a government agency.
The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) announced on Tuesday the practice broke copyright law.
Streaming Service passwords are regularly shared in the Uk by friends who do not necessarily share the same accommodation, despite this typically being against terms of service agreements, but those infringing the law are never brought to justice.
Netflix has never indicated it would take any legal action in such cases.
The IPO told the BBC it was both a criminal and civil matter.
“There are a range of provisions in criminal and civil law which may be applicable in the case of password sharing where the intent is to allow a user to access copyright-protected works without payment,” it said.
“These provisions may include breach of contractual terms, fraud or secondary copyright infringement, depending on the circumstances.
“Where these provisions are provided in civil law, it would be up to the service provider to take action through the courts if required.”
There is no evidence to suggest any of the major streaming video operators in the UK would do this.
Netflix said it wanted to “make it easy” for people borrowing others’ accounts to set up their own, to transfer their profile into a new account, as well as to create “sub-accounts” for people to pay extra for family or friends.
It said it would start rolling out these features “more broadly” in early 2023.