Tennessee Makes it Illegal To Share Your Netflix Password

An anonymous reader writes "State lawmakers in Tennessee have passed a groundbreaking measure that would make it a crime to use a friend's login — even with permission — to listen to songs or watch movies from services such as Netflix or Rhapsody. The bill, which has been signed by the governor, was pushed by recording industry officials to try to stop the loss of billions of dollars to illegal music sharing. They hope other states will follow."

You laugh...

[kantos]

... but many places do have laws like that (Boulder, CO has a limit of four unrelated people under one roof), mind you they are intended to prevent people from running brothels... but still

Re:Have they nothing better to legislate for

[hellgate]

The EU Rental Directive [wikipedia.org] gives rights holders a lot more influence over the use of rentals than they have in the US, where the First-sale doctrine [wikipedia.org] makes rental restrictions harder to defend. For now.

another 1st term Republican governor

[Anonymous Coward]

Tennessee resident here!

Bill Haslam is another 1st term Republican governor running amok. We are not getting as much press as Wisconsin, most likely because no large continuous crowds have occupied the state house, but it's the same pro-big business, anti-union agenda being pushed in many other states. Bill Haslam is a new generation of old money, with his family owning Pilot Oil, an extremely successful regional gas station and quick market chain, among others.

Some precious new policies include:
  * banning teacher union collective bargaining
  * tort reform (read as: placing a price cap on human suffering)
  * raising salaries for his cabinet
  * pushing charter schools, and publicly-funded privately-owned (for-profit) schools

Some of his reforms, like teacher tenure reform, look positive at first glance, but it remains to be seen what the effects of his policies actually are.

Re:And we need more of this too!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want him fired for this then you'd have to agree to throw Obama under the bus too. After all, he was outraged that bonuses were allowed by legislation that he signed into law. His own pen allowed for this abuse and he claimed he didn't know it until later. What does that tell you?

Not to mention all the liberals who claimed that we needed to pass the health care reform bill before we could know what was in it. They're just as guilty.

Or do you only care if it's a guy from the other side of the aisle? Are you that much of a fucktard dimwit to think your party would never fuck you?

Re:Have they nothing better to legislate for

[gomiam]

Sorry, but you are mistaken. You can copy it over and over and give copies to your million friends. That's what the "derecho de reproducción privada" (private reproduction right) allows you to do. You can't get some loudspeakers, a screen and a projector and play the movie for any bystander to watch free of charge: that is considered "comunicación pública" (public communication) and requires permission from the author, interpreters and everybody else with some kind of right over the movie you are projecting. I suggest you read the Ley de Propiedad Intelectual [civil.udg.es] (again?).

Re:Limited number of simultaneous connections?

[CrankyFool]

I work for Netflix (but, obviously, this should not be taken to speak for my employer).

This is something that Netflix thinks about, and it's got about as many safeguards in place to prevent it (starting with the fact you can only have six active devices on your account, followed by the fact that your recommendations get less effective the more you share your account with someone with disparate tastes -- as anyone who shares their account with a spouse will tell you).

As noted in the article, this was pushed by the RIAA types, not Netflix. Netflix had nothing to do with it; it's just that it's being used as the most pervasive example of violation of this law because it's the easiest example.