Apparently a lot of people have been mooching off someone else’s Netflix account for quite a long time. And now Netflix is finally starting to do something about it, starting in four specific countries including Canada:

We’ve always made it easy for people who live together to share their Netflix account with features like profiles and multiple streams. While these have been hugely popular, they’ve also created confusion about when and how you can share Netflix. Today, over 100 million households are sharing accounts — impacting our ability to invest in great new TV and films. 

So over the last year, we’ve been exploring different approaches to address this issue in Latin America, and we’re now ready to roll them out more broadly in the coming months, starting today in Canada, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain.

Here’s how it will work. From now on, users will have to identify their primary residence for Netflix. Anyone at that residence can use whatever service the homeowner is paying for. However, people living someone else but trying to use the same login will be cut off and will have to pay for their own account.

Alternatively, those who have Netflix’s top two levels of service (Standard or Premium) can choose to pay for an “extra member” account at a reduced price of CAD$7.99 (about $5.99 US). Standard members can add one extra member and Premium members can add two. So, for instance, if your son goes away to college but you want him to still have Netflix, you can pay the extra fee for what is basically another basic membership added to your account.

What happens if you want to use your account while on vacation or a business trip? You can still do that but you’ll have to log back into the account from wherever you specified as your primary location at least once a month. And obviously if you move to a new home, you’ll have to update your location as well to avoid being locked out of your own account.

The press release didn’t say when the cut off will begin but the Toronto Star reports they’ll only have a couple weeks:

Netflix did not say when it would begin enforcing the new rules but characterized the announcement as the first step toward requiring viewers to have an account for their own household.

A letter received by one subscriber Wednesday, titled “Netflix is for a single household,” stated they had until Feb. 21 to add a “primary location” to their account.

Obviously they’re trying to work the bugs out of this new system on a smaller scale before they roll this out in America where they have the largest number of subscribers. So when will this be coming to America? Again, Netflix isn’t saying except to say it will be headed to more countries in the coming months. So, just taking a guess, they’ll probably be asking me for my primary address sometime this summer.

Personally, I’m fine with this. More than fine actually. I get that Netflix did this intentionally as part of a business strategy to generate interest and familiarity with their product but there’s a pretty obvious downside to encouraging people to steal your work/the work of others for so long. Decades ago there were a lot of people using Napster and similar sites (there still are I guess) who remain convinced that everything digital should be free. Netflix seems to have gone a long way to support this bad idea.

Personally, I wish Netflix would find every one of the 100 million freeloaders and sue them for back subscription for as many years as they’ve been stealing. I honestly never read the Netflix fine print but I sort of doubt it said that I would be subsidizing a free or half-price service for half the country.

How about giving everyone who has been paying their own way a year free. Seriously, Netflix, I’ve been paying you since you were mailing me DVDs in flimsy red and white envelopes. Where’s my free ride from the company?

Yeah, I realize it’s only entertainment but when you set a system where the dishonest benefit and the honest pay, maybe you deserve what you get. Maybe some of the digital squatters who’ve been stealing Netflix for a decade or more should take them to court and argue the demand that they suddenly pay a fee for the service is arbitrary and capricious. There has to be some dirtbag lawyer willing to take on that case.