Something that’s bubbling up to prominence right now – thanks partly to the negotiations around new cloud music services – is the issue of people sharing passwords to their digital entertainment services with friends. Or even selling them to strangers. US state Tennessee has become one of the first to take legislative action, with a new measure making it a crime to share logins for web entertainment. According to Billboard, the measure’s official aim is to crack down on people selling passwords in bulk – often that have been hacked from innocent users. However, it could also be used to target more social sharing. “What becomes not legal is if you send your user name and password to all your friends so they can get free subscriptions,” explained the bill’s sponsor, Gerald McCormick. The maximum penalty for ‘stealing’ $500 or less of entertainment is up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine. It’s most relevant to subscription music services like Spotify, Rhapsody and Rdio, but the issue of how to stop people sharing cloud locker passwords with friends has been at the heart of rightsholder negotiations with the likes of Google and Amazon.
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