Fix Netflix

superchuck500 said
My gut is that there's some difficulty with calling it generic theft. States have been passing laws to define the unauthorized use of online services. There's quite a bit of analysis online and the consensus seems to be that accessing an online service with someone else's credential for otherwise legal purposes (e.g. simply streaming content) has not been treated as a crime.

If it was so obviously and fundamentally theft under state law, I think much of this lawmaking and analysis would be unnecessary.

https://slate.com/technology/2016/07/is-it-really-illegal-to-share-your-netflix-password.html

I agree there is some ambiguity in calling it theft, mostly because of the requirement of the intent to permanently deprive the other of the thing, but I do think it broadly fits the definition based on the idea that the taker is permanently depriving the owner of the value of the IP even if they aren't actually taking a thing. But, as you point out, that's probably why they are writing more specific laws to deal with the issue.

Still, I do think it's fraud since you are essentially representing yourself as being the person with the subscription by using their username and password.

But, obviously no DA is going to ever prosecute this stuff anyway unless it is done by someone selling usernames and passwords in massive numbers.

Anyway, regardless of if it fits the legal definition of theft or not, I think we all know that it is stealing in the practical sense even if we choose to play semantics in our own minds to avoid admitting it.