- Disney Plus will crack down on password sharing between June and September
- Subscribers must pay to add members outside their household
If you’ve charged off your friend’s Disney Plus account, we have some bad news for you.
From June, the streaming service will crack down on password sharing for the first time, Disney CEO Bob Iger has confirmed.
Speaking in an interview with CNBCsaid Mr. Iger that the company would soon be “launching our first real foray into password sharing.”
Subscribers will have to pay for additional members outside their household, although Disney has yet to confirm how much this will cost.
This crackdown will start in “just a few countries” but will soon grow to a full rollout in September.
Disney Plus will begin cracking down on password sharing from June and roll out more widely later this year in September
Disney Plus’s terms of service state that a subscription can only be used within a “household,” which refers to all the people living in the main home.
In reality, passwords are often shared with friends and family, far beyond Disney’s definition of a household.
Disney previously suggested a crackdown would happen in February, when subscribers received an email letting them know its terms of service were changing to make sharing passwords more difficult.
Then-Disney Chief Financial Officer Hugh Johnston said during an earnings call at the time: “Later this calendar year, account holders who want to grant access to people outside their household will be able to add it to their accounts for an additional fee. ‘
However, it remains unclear how much this additional fee will amount to, or how Disney will verify whether a user is from the primary household or not.
MailOnline has contacted Disney for further clarification on how the crackdown on password sharing will be enforced.
Disney’s announcement follows Netflix’s crackdown on password sharing, which began in 2023.
Disney CEO Bob Iger (pictured) confirmed the dates when subscribers will have to pay to add members outside their household
Netflix has introduced paid sharing, giving users the option to purchase ‘extra member slots’ for £4.99 per month.
And while the crackdown might have been inconvenient for many, the change has helped Netflix reach 13 million new subscribers by the end of 2023.
Mr. Iger has previously promised that Disney’s streaming service will turn a profit by the end of this year, and ending password sharing could be a big step toward that goal.
In the interview, Mr. Iger also expressed great admiration for the way Netflix was managed, saying, “Netflix is the gold standard in streaming, they’ve done a phenomenal job in a lot of different directions.”
Disney Plus has been boosted by big hits like The Bear (pictured), but has suffered big losses due to significant investments in new content. Disney may be hoping that ending password sharing will bring profits to the company
This isn’t the first time Disney has emulated one of Netflix’s innovations.
In November last year, Disney Plus followed Netflix in introducing pricing tiers with different subscription levels.
Disney Plus introduced a ‘Standard’ tier that offers a lower price for including ads, as well as an ad-free ‘Premium’ subscription for more than double the price.
UK subscribers also have access to a slightly more expensive standard tier without ads, which doesn’t offer the ultra-HD quality of the premium tier.
In the US, Disney Plus offers bundled subscriptions that include access to Hulu and ESPN sports.
Customers can choose between a combination of ad-free and ad-free plans for all three streaming services.