While major OTT platforms such as Netflix, Amazon etcetera along with Indian OTT platforms are struggling with its number of subscribers, a company named ‘OneFlix’ which is located at 7/A, Road 10, Dhanmondi, Dhaka, Bangladesh is offering all major OTT platforms to its customers at an unbelievable fees, which proves, contents of those OTT (streaming) platforms are being illegally sold thus causing tremendous revenue loss to the original owners of the contents of the international platforms.
According to information provided on the website of ‘OneFlix’ anyone paying an amount between BDT 490 can enjoy all the international streaming platforms, while the company offers similar services just for BDT 230 per month once the subscription is taken for 6 months. This company is also offering its services to prospective customers through its Facebook page.
When contacted a sales representative of Netflix told this correspondent that selling their services by any third party without written consent is illegal. Anyone willing to subscribe to Netflix needs to directly take it from the company by making monthly subscription fees.
It may be mentioned here that Netflix service is available in Bangladesh.
Such activities can be deemed as piracy.
The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) issued some Guidance in December 2022 on The Effect of Piracy. The original draft included reference to password sharing between households and that this practice represented a breach of copyright law. The BBC reported that this draft was later updated to remove the reference to illegality.
However, a follow up enquiry from the BBC obtained confirmation from the IPO that password sharing was potentially illegal from both a civil and criminal law perspective:
Tom Gerken, BBC Technology Reporter stated: “One interesting part of the IPO’s response is the reference to criminal law – suggesting that people could theoretically face prosecution from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) for password sharing”.
