Disney+ has become the latest streamer to begin stopping subscribers sharing passwords and will terminate accounts if they violate the new rules.
- Canadians are the first to face crackdown, which is expected to rollout to the UK and elsewhere in the coming months.
- New terms and conditions say users face loss of their account if they share their password outside of their household.
Disney CEO Bob Iger first confirmed in August that the company was planning to implement a crackdown on users sharing passwords to friends and family outside of their household.
Now subscribers in Canada have become the first to receive emails warning them of changes next month. If all runs smoothly, the crackdown is expected to rollout globally. As a result, all eyes are on Canada to see what type of changes subscribers here might face soon.
The email tells Canadian users that from 1st November, Disney+ will begin restricting the ability to share passwords outside of a user’s household. In addition, Disney+ has updated its terms and conditions which threatens non-compliant users with the termination of their account.
However, the revised Subscriber Agreement does include a clause saying that certain “service tiers” will be exempt. This indicates Disney+ has something up its sleeve.
Disney+ has already made some tweaks to its UK terms and conditions in advance of the crackdown starting. It is also launching new subscription tiers from next month. But none of the tiers announced so far include a Netflix-style paid sharing option.
Canada was one of the early testing grounds for Netflix’s paid sharing scheme. Although Netflix’s clampdown did result in subscribers cancelling, the drop was only temporary. Disney will hope for a similar outcome.
Marc Thornham