Technically, the majority consider password sharing a violation of their terms of service (HBO Go states that you must be a “subscriber with an account in good standing with an authorized distributor of HBO” to use the service). But both HBO and Netflix have gone on the record to say that their companies don’t see password sharing as a major cause for concern, even though Variety reports that the sector lost upwards of $500m worldwide due to the practice.
It's interesting how court rulings can sometimes have unintended consequences. While companies like Hulu and Netflix are being very understanding about this, I can imagine such a ruling could still have a negative impact on people down the road.
Confusing article.
However, Stephen Reinhardt, a judge in the case, noted that the decision “threatens to criminalize all sorts of innocuous conduct engaged in daily by ordinary citizens”, apparently including those who share passwords for streaming sites.
It says the majority opinion clearly states that the case is not about password sharing, but the article is about password sharing.
If this is really about password sharing, then wouldn't giving a friend or a spouse a password to your email account to check your messages for you be illegal? That seems like a more strange outcome.
I can see why password sharing of streaming sites might not be desirable for the streaming sites, but sharing email passwords for convenience would fall under that too.
If they ever use that law to criminalize password sharing of streaming sites, I would hope that there would be more guidance about what falls under that and what doesn't.