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Netflix Password Sharing May Soon Be Impossible Due To New AI Tracking (independent.co.uk)

Posted by BeauHD on from the good-things-coming-to-an-end dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Independent: A video software firm has come up with a way to prevent people from sharing their account details for Netflix and other streaming services with friends and family members. UK-based Synamedia unveiled the artificial intelligence software at the CES 2019 technology trade show in Las Vegas, claiming it could save the streaming industry billions of dollars over the next few years. The AI system developed by Synamedia uses machine learning to analyze account activity and recognize unusual patterns, such as account details being used in two locations within similar time periods. The idea is to spot instances of customers sharing their account credentials illegally and offering them a premium shared account service that will authorize a limited level of password sharing. The company said it is already carrying out trials with a number of pay-TV operators but did not reveal which ones.

5 of 151 comments (clear)

  1. Let my ex take her profile with her by 110010001000 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I still share my Netflix with my ex. She's willing to pay for Netflix herself, but there is a problem. She can't take her watching history, ratings, and her list of bookmarked titles to her new account. When asked, Netflix say "meh, just start over".

    Come on dudes, your devs could easily add account merges and splits (and while at it, give me an option to let me watch the end credits in full screen in peace). I'm not motivated enough to write a scraper/saver to copy her profile from my account to hers using Greasemonkey (the watch list is probably easy to get, but the entirely to watch progress and the simulation needed to bring every timestamp over might be harder on my end), and you guys don't seem either.

    But hey, AI is cool. Decent profile handling is so meh. Don't forget the blockchain.

    1. Re:Let my ex take her profile with her by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 4, Insightful

      > She can't take her watching history, and her list of bookmarked titles to her new account.
      > Come on dudes, your devs could easily add account merges and splits

      Agreed! That would be REALLY nice Quality of Life improvement. You are spot on about watching history being "locked" to an account. This isn't fucking rocket science -- just some basic computer science.

      Even worse is when old content gets pulled. How am I supposed to add it to my "Want to watch again list". I can't because the page no longer exists.

      The Netflix UI is a complete clusterfuck at times. When you search for content that they don't have rights / license to they instead show "other related" shows. NO! I want to go to the entity I _searched_ for AND I want give you FEEDBACK that I'm interested in by pressing "Notify me when this becomes available". Kind of like a "Wish List". Gee, apparently this is too fucking hard to figure out!

      HBO Go has a really nice feature "Leaving soon..." Content that will be going away at the end of the month. THAT's how you keep engagement high. INFORM people what they can't soon watch so they are more likely to watch it.

      That thumbs up/down rating system is also shit. The 5 star system allows me to grade something as "Great!", "Good", "Meh", "Bad", "Total crap". Lacking fine granularity is NOT helpful.

      Do they even USE their product???

  2. Works for me! by SirAstral · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I actually hate this service but everyone in the family wants it... so I pay for two of them.

    I hope they come down on me so I can get rid of it entirely.

    This will only lose them money in the long run likely because the rule of piracy is if you make content difficult to get a hold of, piracy become so easy that they go there instead of with your bullshit draconian DRM schemes for money.

  3. Re:Not sure why netflix would implement this by Kyogreex · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Yeah, and if people start getting messages that they need to spend more because they're on a business trip and their kid in another state is watching at the same time (and similar scenarios) when they're already paying for the two-stream service, I would imagine they'll start getting pissed.

  4. Re:Simple solution: Charge per stream by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Which is bullshit. WHY does the location even matter if you are paying per stream???

    i.e.
    If I travel outside the country I get hit by their bullshit geo-IP blocking. I'm *paying* for the fucking service but can't use it -- all because I'm out of the country??? WTF! (Yes, I know its because of the greed of the Content Creators who license their IP and not technically Netflix's fault but this is still bullshit.)

    All these shenanigans do is just drive people to use proxies.