'Cord Cheating' Common among US Subscription Streamers

[Batman]

^^ BINGO! If they truly want to "police" this issue then all the streaming providers should limit how many users can access the content at any given time and/or limit the number of devices that can access an account. If an account holder wants to add another device that would exceed the limit then one must be subtracted. I know with Sling, if a device or computer is streaming, and you try to log in from another device or computer you're asked if you want to interrupt the stream at the other device/location.

Besides that I think the only other way to curb this method of "stealing" content would be for providers to actually lower their monthly pricing to attract more paying subscribers. I would imagine whatever is deemed fair by the providers will always include provisions for "theft" in any form, since content theft will have to be dealt with until the end of time.

 

[Deleted member 133]

I agree with the previous three posts.

Flint, I think your intro paragraph / rant in the original post was lacking. And while I may occasionally disgree totally with something you post, normally I know that you've thought it through and have not missed some key point. In this case you have. I have no doubt that Netflix' business model is predicated on the knowledge, understanding, and approval of sharing - and not just by family members. Their control / limitation comes via concurrent streams and enabled devices. They must know that the more "sharing" that occurs the greater the chance that those limits will be reached and new services sold. This is almost certainly a net gain for them. It's a cost-free means of getting more people hooked on their service, rather than a competitor's. Very smart on their part.

Jeff

ps. I may be wrong, but am I correct to recall you posting, a very long time ago at that other place, that you had once tried to talk a bunch of your neighbours into sharing the cost of a single high speed internet account, to which you would connect them all, but for some reason you never went ahead with it. Was the plan, in that case, to clearly inform the internet service that you were, in effect, planning to "sub-let" access to your neighbours? Or did they specifically have a plan whereby internet access co-ops were allowed? If not, how would that not be worse than "sharing" a Netflix account?

 

[Flint]

I agree with the previous three posts.

Flint, I think your intro paragraph / rant in the original post was lacking. And while I may occasionally disgree totally with something you post, normally I know that you've thought it through and have not missed some key point. In this case you have. I have no doubt that Netflix' business model is predicated on the knowledge, understanding, and approval of sharing - and not just by family members. Their control / limitation comes via concurrent streams and enabled devices. They must know that the more "sharing" that occurs the greater the chance that those limits will be reached and new services sold. This is almost certainly a net gain for them. It's a cost-free means of getting more people hooked on their service, rather than a competitor's. Very smart on their part.

Jeff

ps. I may be wrong, but am I correct to recall you posting, a very long time ago at that other place, that you had once tried to talk a bunch of your neighbours into sharing the cost of a single high speed internet account, to which you would connect them all, but for some reason you never went ahead with it. Was the plan, in that case, to clearly inform the internet service that you were, in effect, planning to "sub-let" access to your neighbours? Or did they specifically have a plan whereby internet access co-ops were allowed? If not, how would that not be worse than "sharing" a Netflix account?

I posted this article to spur conversation and debate. I took one side of the argument, which generally aligns with the side I usually take supporting the content owners over the users, with the intention of driving the discussion and seem genuine. The fact is, despite ALL of the claims in this thread, that 20% of users in the study are cheating. Regardless of how it is done, it is being done. Those challenging the research are assuming other things beyond what the study found. For instance, Netflix limits you to three streams so our argument is that since we and most of those we know use all sorts of devices that limitation is enough to prevent cheating, but people could just as easily use three smart TVs in three different homes and only watch on those three TVs and share one account. According to this study, that is considered cheating. However, the argument that Netflix is okay with that is separate. The study went well beyond just Netflix. My position was a bit more one sided that my honest position.

As for my plan to purchase a T1 business line and sharing it with my techie neighbors would not have been the same as sharing today's 300Mb Time Warner Cable internet connection. I was evaluating purchasing a full commercial grade T1 line when the fastest option most of us has was a 56Kbps modem or an 128Kbps ISDN line. I would have, in essence, been setting up my own ISP business for three to four neighbors. That is not anything like cheating and sharing a service sold as a single household subscription.

 

[MatthewB]

Ultraviolet allows up to five family members to link into your account so everytime I add a movie they get it freely added to their account and vice versa. My mother uses my Netflix and because I linked my sister and brother in law to my Vudu they return the favor by letting me have their Hulu Plus account, I don't lose any sleep over it.

As we all know at the GTG's we all share music and movies and I don't feel bad about that either. When I see an episode of Cribs and see Puff Daddy showing his solid gold roof in his bedroom and collection of 20 cars each one twice the cost of my house I'm not gonna feel bad about people taking his music. Sure I feel bad for the small artists struggling but then again the majority of people on this planet are not "pirating" their music. When I read a studio makes half a billion in profit on the latest brain dead action flick and their stars are being paid 50 million to do a piss poor job acting again I don't feel bad.

I should feel guilt but I just don't. I gave up after buying movies on videotape, then buying the same movie on DVD then buying the movie on Bluray then they will come out with the special edition with 35 minutes not on the previous version and I'm like shit really why not release that the first time. But now I buy used DVDs at second hand stores load em onto my digital collection and return the movie for a full refund (I have seven days). Because I paid 2.50 to buy the digital rights to the film I know the studio made some money off the exchange without me having to be raped twice with me buying the DVD then paying again to get the digital rights. I'll pay the 2.50 for the digital rights and feel just fine.

 

[Haywood]

Apparently, it is always ethical for corporations to abuse consumers, but always unethical when the shoe is on the other foot.

 

[Towen7]

As we all know at the GTG's we all share music and movies and I don't feel bad about that either.

Correction. We ALL do not share music and movies at the GTGs that I've been to. Sure, it goes on and I don't loose sleep over it either. Not being judgey. Just sayin.

 

[Towen7]

Apparently, it is always ethical for corporations to abuse consumers, but always unethical when the shoe is on the other foot.

Nobody is saying that and you know it. Of course it's unethical for a corporation to abuse customers. That doesn't make abusing corporations okay. An equally ridiculous statement ... My bank failed to protect me from debit card fraud. So I robbed a bank.

Isn't there an old saying about the number of wrongs its takes equal a right?

 

[Deleted member 133]

I agree with the previous three posts.

Flint, I think your intro paragraph / rant in the original post was lacking. And while I may occasionally disgree totally with something you post, normally I know that you've thought it through and have not missed some key point. In this case you have. I have no doubt that Netflix' business model is predicated on the knowledge, understanding, and approval of sharing - and not just by family members. Their control / limitation comes via concurrent streams and enabled devices. They must know that the more "sharing" that occurs the greater the chance that those limits will be reached and new services sold. This is almost certainly a net gain for them. It's a cost-free means of getting more people hooked on their service, rather than a competitor's. Very smart on their part.

Jeff

ps. I may be wrong, but am I correct to recall you posting, a very long time ago at that other place, that you had once tried to talk a bunch of your neighbours into sharing the cost of a single high speed internet account, to which you would connect them all, but for some reason you never went ahead with it. Was the plan, in that case, to clearly inform the internet service that you were, in effect, planning to "sub-let" access to your neighbours? Or did they specifically have a plan whereby internet access co-ops were allowed? If not, how would that not be worse than "sharing" a Netflix account?

As for my plan to purchase a T1 business line and sharing it with my techie neighbors would not have been the same as sharing today's 300Mb Time Warner Cable internet connection. I was evaluating purchasing a full commercial grade T1 line when the fastest option most of us has was a 56Kbps modem or an 128Kbps ISDN line. I would have, in essence, been setting up my own ISP business for three to four neighbors. That is not anything like cheating and sharing a service sold as a single household subscription.

Thanks for the clarification. Presumably a T1 business line purchase would not have placed any restrictions on your ability to involve your neighbours as you saw fit.

 

[MatthewB]

I remember as a teenager (in the 80's) cable TV refused to lay extra cable along our street so they stopped one block away from our house and refused to service our area so one day I met a guy who was selling small sat dishes that could "capture" HBO and a few sat channels being broadcast. I had the guy set up the dish on my parents house and my dad had a real issue with this as he said it was stealing so I had the cable run to just my bedroom. As I told my father the cable company is funded by channels and if they refuse to come to our house where we were willing to pay for the service (this was before Dish or Directv mind you) and the channels were just floating in the air I didn't feel any guilt about buying a device to capture what was floating thru the air anyway. If the few channels were so gung ho against it then they can give the cable company enough money to lay enough cable to reach our house.

Anyway as an adult I pay for my Directv and I give them a crapload of money for 1000 channels and I only watch like 10 channels. I'm paying for sports channels (I hate sports), I'm paying for Mexican channels I don't watch I'm paying for shopping channels, Christian channels heck all sorts of channels I don't watch. Hell I'm paying for a whole tier of channels just to get AMC so I can watch Walking Dead because Directv does this on purpose they add a channel into a tier everyone loves and makes you pay for this higher end tier just to get the one channel. Now does Directv have any guilt about charging me a huge fee for sports channels I'll never watch (sports channels consist of the most priced channels out there but because cable and Sat companies bundle these with other channels your forced to pay for these channels just to get basic service. Trust me they don't feel one bit of guilt. Now when cable first came out they said they charged you a service fee so you could get "commercial free TV" which is how cable TV started. I have yet to find a channel that doesn't have commercials so not only are cable companies making money off each consumer but they are getting paid by advertisers so yeah if I can share my account with family members who are also paying for the same useless channels they're never gonna watch I will. Hulu Plus has commercials so Hulu is getting paid already to broadcast their shows so again no guilt that I get to use my sisters account.

Sorry the entertainment industry is already making more than enough money off of me I just don't have guilt about it.

 

[Towen7]

Took longer than I thought to get to the "I pay TV content I don't want so it's okay to get content I do want for free" argument.

 

[Towen7]

I understand that the companies selling streaming services intend for each account to be limited to a single household. But... I also understand the position that each account has a set number of streams and the account holder is free to distribute those streams as they wish.

Personally I'm in the latter camp with some logical limitations. I think it's fine to share with family, especially those who don't use it as their sole source of entertainment.

 

[Flint]

I love the argument that the big companies are making plenty enough money without my paying so I don't need to pay.

 

[Haywood]

Apparently, it is always ethical for corporations to abuse consumers, but always unethical when the shoe is on the other foot.

Nobody is saying that and you know it. Of course it's unethical for a corporation to abuse customers. That doesn't make abusing corporations okay. An equally ridiculous statement ... My bank failed to protect me from debit card fraud. So I robbed a bank.

Isn't there an old saying about the number of wrongs its takes equal a right?

What I am saying is that I think it is absurd to see so much hand-wringing over the idea of someone sharing a Netflix account and so little hand-wringing over all the abusive practices the cable companies have engaged in for years. The anti-net neutrality crowd in particular confuse me. No, the market is not perfect and does not perfectly self-regulate. Yes, monopolies are bad. Yes, too big to fail is a problem. No, we should not have dumped all of our media ownership rules and allowed a small number of companies to control most of the media.

Obviously, I am doing more than reply to Towen. Just want to make sure nobody thinks I'm putting words in his mouth.

 

[Haywood]

I love the argument that the big companies are making plenty enough money without my paying so I don't need to pay.

I agree that is a bad argument.

 

[Flint]

Apparently, it is always ethical for corporations to abuse consumers, but always unethical when the shoe is on the other foot.

Nobody is saying that and you know it. Of course it's unethical for a corporation to abuse customers. That doesn't make abusing corporations okay. An equally ridiculous statement ... My bank failed to protect me from debit card fraud. So I robbed a bank.

Isn't there an old saying about the number of wrongs its takes equal a right?

What I am saying is that I think it is absurd to see so much hand-wringing over the idea of someone sharing a Netflix account and so little hand-wringing over all the abusive practices the cable companies have engaged in for years. The anti-net neutrality crowd in particular confuse me. No, the market is not perfect and does not perfectly self-regulate. Yes, monopolies are bad. Yes, too big to fail is a problem. No, we should not have dumped all of our media ownership rules and allowed a small number of companies to control most of the media.

Obviously, I am doing more than reply to Towen. Just want to make sure nobody thinks I'm putting words in his mouth.

Wait... You are saying it is okay to steal from Netflix because you believe Comcast is abusive?

 

[Flint]

In 1980 we had a fully regulated communications system consisting of one company and very little innovation.

In 1994 we deregulated, broke-up that company, and were told this was going to be a nightmare.

In 1990 we had dozens of phone companies and the ability to get on the internet and access computers all over the US. Suddenly long distance was affordable, innovation was growing insanely fast, and a whole industry of accessories was created.

In 1995 we had the easy to navigate World Wide Web, startups, the starting of online commerce, an active cell phone ecosystem was developing, and innovation went completely crazy. Options were limitless.

In 2000 we had a fully booming online economy (despite the bubble being inflated) and knowledge was moving from books and the few to the masses.

In 2005 we had a massive expansion in media provider options, the start of smart phones and digital media. Startups changing our lives every week, etc.

In 2010 the online economy was insane... entire real world economies covering cities and regions were growing based on the freedom of the internet, open competition, choice and individual growth.

In 2015 we have a massive expansion of high speed wireless data, super-high speed wired internet, dozens of online alternatives to cable and satellite, and access to content, information, and computing power everywhere we go.

So... now we want to regulate the very thing which made all this happen?

Hmmm....

 

[Haywood]

What I am saying is a couple of things.

1. So long as you are using a service where you are paying for a fixed number of concurrent streams, it is not theft at all. It doesn't matter if you give your login to everyone in the neighborhood. You are paying for three concurrent streams. How you use them is nobody's business but your own. If you are subscribing to a service where there is some kind of household based honor system and you are not limited on concurrent use, that's obviously a different matter entirely.

2. Certain people on this forum are so far to the absolute extreme on so-called intellectual "property" rights that they cry foul at the slightest hint that a consumer might do something not intended by the holy priesthood of the corporate interest. Meanwhile, these same people argue that all government regulation is evil and uncalled for and that pretty much anything done by business in the name of profit is fine, commendable and perfectly okay. I find this amusing.

 

[Towen7]

I don't think there is all that much hand wringing, really. That's the point of the OP, right? That few seem to think it's an issue.

 

[Haywood]

In 1980 we had a fully regulated communications system consisting of one company and very little innovation.

In 1994 we deregulated, broke-up that company, and were told this was going to be a nightmare.

In 1990 we had dozens of phone companies and the ability to get on the internet and access computers all over the US. Suddenly long distance was affordable, innovation was growing insanely fast, and a whole industry of accessories was created.

In 1995 we had the easy to navigate World Wide Web, startups, the starting of online commerce, an active cell phone ecosystem was developing, and innovation went completely crazy. Options were limitless.

In 2000 we had a fully booming online economy (despite the bubble being inflated) and knowledge was moving from books and the few to the masses.

In 2005 we had a massive expansion in media provider options, the start of smart phones and digital media. Startups changing our lives every week, etc.

In 2010 the online economy was insane... entire real world economies covering cities and regions were growing based on the freedom of the internet, open competition, choice and individual growth.

In 2015 we have a massive expansion of high speed wireless data, super-high speed wired internet, dozens of online alternatives to cable and satellite, and access to content, information, and computing power everywhere we go.

So... now we want to regulate the very thing which made all this happen?

Hmmm....

The ISPs changed their behavior and that is what drove the need for this regulation.

 

[Flint]

What did the ISPs do, specifically?