For anyone who has used or tried to use HBO Go subscriptions, you might find this clip from College Humor funny. In class on Tuesday we discussed how companies such as Netflix charge a fixed rate before users can assess the content. HBO Go is similar, except that if you already have HBO through your television provider, you can get it for free by putting in that password.
I find this clip funny because many of my friends have had similar experiences trying to watch The Newsroom. Friends were using friends’ passwords to watch it. People were trying to find someone who was willing to share the password. I never hear of people sharing their Netflix passwords. What has caused the difference between HBO Go and Netflix?
This blog shows the reality that copyright laws have many loopholes that are exploited by a large amount of people. If paying for watching a TV show or getting a song can be avoided many will take advantage but there is no way to monitor this effectively.
Confession time: I use my friend’s Netflix account all the time. I’m not sure that there is a difference between Netflix and HBO Go. This does bring up a solid argument though: Is it fair to use what someone else has paid for if you are unwilling to pay for it yourself?
I feel like this kind of thing starts off in the territory of “letting your friend borrow a DVD” and bleeds into “letting your friend copy a DVD.” It’s something you paid for, so you should be able to share it as you like. The issue being, it can’t be regulated to limits. Once a friend has borrowed a password, unless you go out of your way to change it, they also have unlimited access to what you can, without having to pay. It also shows that, sometimes, convenience can be pretty inconvenient.
I also find that people do actually share their netflix password with friends. But as I’ve noticed, in my family at least, Netflix has a limit on how many people can be watching shows/movies at the same time- only two people in my family can be watching different shows on Netflix at once. When a third party tries to sign on, it will not allow them access to the site. So, I think that this was definitely added as a precaution for the copyright issue of spreading ur password to so many people- allowing for a lot of free loaders.