Disney+ started getting strict about password sharing in Canada last year, and now it’s expanding the restriction to the US. According to The Verge, the streaming service has been sending out emails to its subscribers in the country, notifying them about a change in its terms of service. Its service agreement now states that users may not share their passwords outside of their household “unless otherwise permitted by [their] service tier,” suggesting the arrival of new subscription options in the future.
The Verge says Disney+ told subscribers that they can analyze the use of their account to “determine compliance,” though it didn’t elaborate on how its methods work exactly. “We’re adding limitations on sharing your account outside of your household, and explaining how we may assess your compliance with these limitations,” Disney+ reportedly wrote in its email. In its Service Agreement, the service describes “household” as “the collection of devices associated with [subscribers’] primary personal residence that are used by the individuals who reside therein.” The rule already applies to new subscribers, but old ones have until March 14 to feel its effects.
Was no surprise that other platforms would follow Netflix with not allowing sharing passwords.
What does surprise me is that people actually pay their own subscription for these platforms. Netflix had a win in profit/revenue. I’m surprised that these people did not go for the Piracy method even though, they complain about:
- Price increases
- Not allowed to share password/ account
- Content not available on said platform and having to go to others platforms
- Cancellation of shows after one or two seasons
There are millions of people who can afford $140/yr. They just don’t complain on forums.
Most people don’t even know how piracy works unless it gets as mainstream as Napster did. You tell them about torrenting, -arr programs, debrid services, and they’ll have no clue what you’re talking about.
I pirate with torrents and the rest still goes over my head.
Of it were up to me I’d drop it in a heart beat. I’m outvoted by kids grandkids and wife who watch random things throughout the day.
I barely watch TV these days and would happily hooky the odd things I do want to see
Also good piracy requires understanding torrenting and navagating the 7 seas with a vpn. And know what a good/bad torrent looks like.
My parents LOVE to tell all their friends and family how I can magically get any tv show or movie for them through the computer 5$ a month without all that subscription crap which gets everyones hopes up and I have to gently let them down that it requires a bit more computer knowhow than a regular non-tech person ]possesses.
If you think you can properly educate people on safely torrenting be my guest but for most people who have neither the time or desire to learn computer nerd stuff instead they choose the simple and convinent option of just coughing up dollars
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I’m not surprised. It went really well for Netflix.
Everybody said they’d cancel Netflix over it, even that it would be a mistake that would kill Netflix, but when it came down to it, most continued paying/bought a plan and Netflix became more profitable.
The people who said they’d cancel probably did, they were just the minority.
Yep. I cancelled but all of my family on my account got their own
I cancelled. It’s just that I’m a small minority of people. The number that cancelled was apparently less than the people who signed up for their own account. Oh well. Netflix wasn’t that good anymore anyway. I barely used that app. Disney Plus however I’m not going to cancel. That one is worth it to me.
So my child, who is not old enough for their own account, will now no longer be able to watch Disney+ while attending school at their residential academy 400 miles away. Just like Netflix. And just like Netflix, my subscription will be canceled the moment they try to block them from logging in.
Or my child, who shares a house with my ex wife in his laptop that I paid for…
Oddly enough, the price hikes earlier last year were enough to move me to spend four times as much as an annual subscription for a NAS and 16TB of storage. I made digital backups of my media and set up my parents and sister’s family with Jellyfin accounts to access my media as needed. Now they can watch videos of our wedding and my niece’s dance recital from the comfort of their living rooms. All without worrying about arbitrary changes to TOS. And I’m learning about all kinds of horrible children’s shows. OTOH my niece and nephew are learning about cool things like Batman: The Animated Series and Tiny Toons.
I’ve only run into a couple small issues when it came to backing up my media, but I’ll get them sorted.
four times as much as an annual subscription
If you’re gonna waste money, you might as well waste money on something big.
It’s not a waste, it’s an investment lol
Confirmed
I’ve got… A rather large storage pool.
My media server also handles family movies, including VHS from the 80s I’ve converted and cleaned up.
Server itself is a cheap off lease dell micro I bought several years back for $125, added a $50 nvme SSD, and the igpu has been chugging along transcoding beautifully since.
Same system also runs a separate book/comic/etc service, backup DNS, a generated kid safe “channel” that is available on the media server, all my dslr photos are on there, etc, etc.
Which then for what is crucial to me gets a local and a remote backup.
At this point I’ve saved money over paying for subscriptions, and I use it for a whole lot more (so even more savings on top).
🏴☠️
If we can’t use my MIL’s account I will pirate the shows instead
Meh. I cancelled Netflix when they did it and I cancelled my Hulu bundle when I got the email a couple of days ago. I know I won’t make a difference, but I also won’t miss either one of them.
I’ve started cracking down on Disney+, and I’m getting flack for it. It’s all “why did you dropkick our TV”, “how did you get in here”, “we’re calling the police” bla bla bla bla. I’m just trying to help! Geez.
Demonoid never gave a shit about sharing my password :D
Disney lost 1.3 million subscribers last quarter. I’m sure this will help. 🙄
It worked for Netflix. It’s easy to scoff at the clearly customer-antagonistic policies these services are turning towards, inevitably accompanied by the “well, they lost me as a subscriber” flood of comments. But the unfortunate truth is the vast majority of people just shut up and pay, resulting in big net income for the corporations that enact these policies.
I’m not sure that it actually did work for Netflix. I’ve seen at least one article claiming that Netflix lost subscribers in western markets after the change, but also added large numbers of subscribers in developing markets where the subscription price was much cheaper. Netflix spun this as “we added more users last quarter.”
I’m sure just like Netflix, it will only effect Smart TVs. Netflix never stopped you from watching on your phone or browser.
I can get around password sharing rules on every streaming service that has them by using my phone and mobile data lmao.
Netflix recently stopped me from casting to my tv from my phone, which used to work fine
Crack down all you want little mouse.
🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️ 🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️ 🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️ 🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️ 🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️
raising prices, adding ads and cracking down on shared accounts all have me LOOKing for a place to get a MOVIE 2 watch without messing with a DOT TOrrent file
I am from the US, my wife is not. I live in her country and Disney releases a different app for each country.
This is a problem, because I have the US app store and she has the app store from her country. So, I cannot log into our disneyplus account on my phone. Or I can get the app and subscribe then, she can’t login.
I’d switch my account to the country where we are living, but I can’t or I’d lose access to some of my banking apps. So, I don’t even have a way to watch it without getting two subscriptions.
