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Disney's Password-Sharing Crackdown Starts 'in Earnest' Next Month (theverge.com) 80

Posted by msmash from the pay-to-play dept.
Disney Plus will soon no longer let you share your password with people outside your household. From a report: During an earnings call on Wednesday, Disney CEO Bob Iger said the crackdown will kick off "in earnest" this September. The timeline for Disney's password-sharing crackdown has been a bit confusing so far. In February, Disney announced plans to roll out paid sharing and also began notifying users about the change. It then launched paid sharing in a "few countries" in June but provided no information on when it would reach the US.
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Disney's Password-Sharing Crackdown Starts 'in Earnest' Next Month More

Disney's Password-Sharing Crackdown Starts 'in Earnest' Next Month

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  • Household (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bugs2squash ( 1132591 ) on Wednesday August 07, 2024 @10:52AM (#64687538)
    so if your kid goes to a local university and lives at home they can watch the mandalorian, but if they live on campus in another city they can't. This household thing is so arbitrary.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by guruevi ( 827432 )

      This is Disney, so this will mostly affect the kids going to grandma and watching Disney on the TV. They are destroying their reputation however for a few percent more subscribers, in the long term they will lose the goodwill and loyalty of their customers. They must be in really dire straits to go after the 5% of people that would never have paid in the first place anyway.

      • Re:Household (Score:5, Insightful)

        by nightflameauto ( 6607976 ) on Wednesday August 07, 2024 @11:21AM (#64687632)

        This is Disney, so this will mostly affect the kids going to grandma and watching Disney on the TV. They are destroying their reputation however for a few percent more subscribers, in the long term they will lose the goodwill and loyalty of their customers. They must be in really dire straits to go after the 5% of people that would never have paid in the first place anyway.

        I wish what you said was true, but Disney is just acting on known data here. Known data: Netflix did this and shows rising subscriber numbers for every month following the crackdown. Disney doesn't care about goodwill. And apparently, neither do the subscribers. They'll grumble and bitch and pony up and that'll be that.

        • Netflix did this

          I'm still getting away with using my friend's Netflix account. Maybe because it's the ad-supported tier and they don't mind extra eyeballs being exposed to the ads? In any case I'm not using it very much.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AvitarX ( 172628 )

            I wonder if they are staggering (even still) the account lockdowns.

            If they do it all at once, everyone complains and is upset at once.

            If they do it slowly over a few years they get some perks

            1) extended growth instead of all at once
            2) people have positive feelings as if getting away with something for 2 years before having to get their own or drop it
            3) if it didn't actually up subscriptions they wouldn't have lost as many users

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by leonbev ( 111395 )

          Will they, though? I'm already disappointed by the lack of new Disney+ and Hulu content because of the recent writer's strike. If they gave me an additional excuse to cancel my bundle by harassing me if I'm trying to watch something outside of my normal viewing area, I'd do it without a second thought.

          • Will they, though? I'm already disappointed by the lack of new Disney+ and Hulu content because of the recent writer's strike. If they gave me an additional excuse to cancel my bundle by harassing me if I'm trying to watch something outside of my normal viewing area, I'd do it without a second thought.

            I guess I'll just hope you aren't the only one.

      • I don't care, I let my kids watch "Aliens" when they were little. No, but my wife (Grandma) cares. She loves watching the content on Disney, but she's pretty clear that most of it isn't what she wants to show our kids. MeTV just opened a broadcast all-cartoon channel - half of the cartoons are racist or sexist, but it's still more acceptable than much of Disney's current fare.

        FWIW, I like the new Disney - but it isn't quite for children anymore, is it? Was it ever?

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          but it isn't quite for children anymore, is it? Was it ever?

          this is the human brain marinating too long in internet culture war soup

        • FWIW, I like the new Disney - but it isn't quite for children anymore, is it? Was it ever?

          Of course it was. Not only was it children-centric, but I maintain that if Walt Disney could rise from the grave, he'd personally lead the mob with torches and pitchforks to burn down the company that bears his name. Studios, parks, all of it. He'd hate what Disney has become.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by mmell ( 832646 )

            The old Disney - the one who yelled about that "damned Jew animation artist"? The one who made "Song of the South"? He wasn't altruistic, working only for the joy and laughter of the little ones. He was being a savvy and brilliant businessman - and if a lot of adults won't admit it, he knew even then that they were in the audience watching. That's why even Snow White and Cinderella have the occasional subtle element thrown in for the older audience members. Even Bambi and Dumbo weren't just for kids.

            T

            • Being 'just for kids' is not what your original statement was, it was, "...but it isn't quite for children anymore,..." It was and is for kids for many of the movies/shows, adding in something to keep mom or dad interested well, they are the ones that drove the kids to the theater and paid for the movie, so they might like to see some bits as well. Nothing wrong with that. And whilst the kiddies don't have the money in their pocket to buy the newest Star Wars toy, they will cry and such of they don't get it

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by mmell ( 832646 )
                Ah, a fair point. All the same, their product is more firmly aimed at the parents with the jingle in their pockets than the kids. Why do you suppose all of their work is carefully sanitized? I don't suppose you've looked at, say, The Hunchback of Notre Dame or even Pocahontas, have you? The first absolutely should never have been adapted for children (to do so required the point of the novel to be omitted), the second sanitized the historical reality so badly as to qualify it as propaganda. It's not li
                • good points, I did not see those movies you spoke of but did read the Hunchback at some point in the past and would never have presumed it to be something kids would enjoy... i prefer happy endings, but i also get the point(s) made by the original tale, as well as the original 'fairy tales' that a lot of Disney is (in theory) based upon... as well as the part where Disney made bajillions of greenbacks using works that they found without current copywrite protection, then copywritted them... But to be honest

        • . MeTV just opened a broadcast all-cartoon channel - half of the cartoons are racist or sexist, but it's still more acceptable than much of Disney's current fare.

          I love the new MeTV Tunes channel.

          Warner Brothers classics, Tom and Jerry, Woody Woodpecker, Moose and Squirrel.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Kaenneth ( 82978 )

          Did you try making a kids profile?

        • > half of the cartoons are racist or sexist Boy what a sad life you must lead having to imagine racism and sexism behind every corner.

      • for a few percent more subscribers

        If Disney+ follows what happened at Netflix (and there is no reason to think it won't) subscriber numbers will shoot up considerably - It won't just be a "few percent more subscribers."

      • My kids have Disney+ and put it on our TV so when they visit they can entertain the grandkids. We don't watch it. It really only gets used when they visit. Looks like this will still work except they'll have to keep relogging in when they come and then when they go home. That's annoying for them.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ls671 ( 1122017 )

      Came here to say basically the same. I guess this will encourage people to pirate more, especially students in Universities which will get plenty of help if they don't already know how to.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mmell ( 832646 )

        You don't encourage people to become thieves. You just make it easier, the individual still has to make the personal ethical call. I, personally, steal content using torrent software. I don't rationalize it by saying I deserve it, I don't rationalize it by saying the media providers are being unfair, I don't rationalize it by saying I'm not hurting anybody. I steal content when I feel it's easy enough to do and get away with. Period.

        I'm not a great person, overall - but I'm honest enough to admit to m

        • the individual still has to make the personal ethical call

          That's easy. It's called entitlement. People believe they are entitled to whatever they want and if they have to steal it, so be it. After all, no one needs to be compensated for their work.

          I don't rationalize it by saying I deserve it, I don't rationalize it by saying the media providers are being unfair, I don't rationalize it by saying I'm not hurting anybody. I steal content when I feel it's easy enough to do and get away with. Period.
          • Please don't. Keep your rationalizations to yourself.

          • Just like the media companies feel they are entitled to take other peoples ideas, work and make a movie and "own" the right in perpetuity.

            The bulk of the advancement in society is based on taking someones ideas and adding to it, its massive entitlement to believe just because you are the last one to do it give you some right to ownership of an idea that took generations to come into being.

            What is right and wrong is not some sort of absolute, the rich and entitled have been writing laws that have protected

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by mmell ( 832646 )
              A long argument to support the simple contention that you have a right to take that which you know isn't yours. That's sophistry.

        • > You don't encourage people to become thieves. You just make it easier,

          Sadly, Disney never got the memo. :-/

          Just make it super easy, barely an inconvenience to sign up additional family members and charge a reasonable rate, $1/family member (with a limit of say ~10), and more people would sign up.

          Like Gabe of Valve said:

          "We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem."

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by mmell ( 832646 )

            True enough, that. Like many consumers, Disney figures it for a game of "Us vs. Them". If Disney ditched the zero-sum thinking and tried "what do we need to charge to be happy?", followed by "How much good stuff can we give our customers while still staying happy?", I suspect everybody'd be happier.

            I'll just flap my arms and fly to the moon now . . .

    • A whole generation will start using VPN to tunnel their streaming traffic through the home.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Virtucon ( 127420 )

      If you're kids are at University watching the Mandalorian, then you have bigger issues.

      • Yes. The only thing that should happen at a university is education. I never watched a movie or TV show in my late teens/early 20s either. There is no time for fun.
      • Your kids should be learning to play beer pong during pledge week, and binge drinking suicide punch with the frat bros all night. I'm not paying so my kid can go to school and turn into a nerd. Anthony Edwards made it look cool, but that's only because he's cool in real life; and it was only a movie.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by bn-7bc ( 909819 )
          News flash nor everyone likes frat bros, some peopleasslo have conditions that makes interacting in larger groups ( often ,eads toma very nosy environment) highly stressful. You can ofc dismiss this gtoup ( vell meny groups depending on how you categorise but that's beside the point here ) as snowflakes, but that's rather nerrow minded. Might I instead suggest that you accapt the fact thst oeople are different, and that to certain people college is a place for education and the unwind you get from hanging w
    • That how it works with Netflix. Itâ(TM)s total bullshit. These streaming companies suck.

    • I set up a VPN server and taught my kids how to use it to occasionally log in last year when Netflix started this crap.

      This year everyone is raising rates, content quality is dropping even more, and everyone is just getting greedier with stupid crap like not airing the final episodes of shows on the paid streaming sites until the show finishes airing on TV, forcing you to either pay for a cable subscription to watch it as it airs or watch it on their shitty ad-infested app even though we have a paid subscri

    • so if your kid goes to a local university and lives at home they can watch the mandalorian, but if they live on campus in another city they can't. This household thing is so arbitrary.

      If your kid is living on a college campus in another city, paying for another Netflix account is likely the least of the concerns related to that overall expense. The weed and Adderall budget alone is likely three times that.

    • so if your kid goes to a local university and lives at home they can watch the mandalorian, but if they live on campus in another city they can't. This household thing is so arbitrary.

      [Citation needed]. It's not how it works anywhere. Even with Netflix's crackdown I have no problem using my household Netflix when working in other cities or other countries for months at a time. The criteria is however that the device was bound to the Netflix account in the household - i.e. the only time I actually truly had an issue was when I had an accident overseas which forced me to replace my laptop. I couldn't log into my Netflix account from there without first being back at my house at some point

  • Maybe they will fix their other login bug finally. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by xeoron ( 639412 ) on Wednesday August 07, 2024 @10:53AM (#64687542) Homepage
    Per device (roku, chrome, firefox, disney phone app, etc) it always claims my password is wrong and forces me to change my password each time I log into their service in any form...each authenticated app has a different password because of this.

    • Why do you put up with that shit when you can easily stream all the content for free. If they can't make a decent app then they don't deserve to be paid.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by xeoron ( 639412 )
        I didn't... only used it on my streaming box... before I canceled 2 months ago due to not enough content on the service.

    • Can't say I've ever come across that. Are you doing something strange like putting your household behind a VPN? Or maybe it's being triggered by a shared CG-NAT'd IP address.

  • We're all thinking it. Somebody had to say it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rossdee ( 243626 )

      Doesn't Ernie (and Burt and Elmo etc) already belong to Disney?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by skam240 ( 789197 )

        Ernest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] , not Ernie. They're not referring to the muppets.

        There were a good number of Ernest movies in the 80's and 90's (all aimed at young kids) and a lot of them had titles along the lines of "Ernest Goes to ______", hence the titled of the parent's post.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mmell ( 832646 )
          Hey, I was tryin' to make a funny. So was rossdee. Don't read too much into it - my brain first parsed the headline as "Disney . . . starts on Ernest". That was way funnier, but you had to be there.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by skam240 ( 789197 )

            Pretty sure what happened is that Rossdee didnt get the joke and I more or less explained it to them as I don't see how what they said was a joke. If I misunderstood I dont really care.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by mmell ( 832646 )

              my brain first parsed the headline as "Disney . . . starts on Ernest". That was way funnier, but you had to be there

              These are the jokes. C'mon, kid, work with me, here!

  • I do use Disney+ on trips sometimes, I hope there's not something that ends up thinking I'm password sharing and blocks me out... I guess if a device you are on has ever been on your home network maybe it's safe though.

    One interesting aspect was that when I was overseas it let me access and download Hulu content for the flight back to the U.S, which I don't have access to at home.

    • I hope they use the Netflix 30 days rule. Where any devices that have been on the home IP in the last 30 days stay authenticated.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mridoni ( 228377 )

        Well, that would not solve the problem I and (possibly many others) might have: I have a Fire Stick that I only use while traveling, since at home I have an Apple TV, a Kodi PC, and so no need for the FireStick to be permanently connected.

        • I guess you'd have to connect it to a TV or PC monitor temporarily just before leaving and launch the app.

        • Well, that would not solve the problem I and (possibly many others) might have: I have a Fire Stick that I only use while traveling, since at home I have an Apple TV, a Kodi PC, and so no need for the FireStick to be permanently connected.

          Sure it would solve your problem, connect the device once before leaving. Just add it to a list of things to do when you're packing your holiday bags. Heck many people already do that with their laptops anyway - to download some offline Netflix for their flight.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by flink ( 18449 )

            I shouldn't have to do that though or even know it is a thing. I pay them for a service, not to saddle me with an extra hassle.

    • Travel Router + VPN

  • He won't let the mouse get away with this woke idea of making everyone pay.

    Oh, wait . . .

  • Originally, streaming killed piracy (or really wounded it) but not shockingly, the streaming services got greedy: higher prices and ads everywhere. Piracy is thriving again. When--not if--they go hard against piracy again, they'll be fucked 'cause we'll just stop watching. Piracy only exist when companies are shitbags... but piracy is NOT the enemy of streaming; our lack of attention is.

    • Re:Don't care... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by UnknownSoldier ( 67820 ) on Wednesday August 07, 2024 @12:22PM (#64687804)

      > but piracy is NOT the enemy of streaming; our lack of attention is.

      More precisely, the Lack of Quality is the enemy of streaming. When viewers are SO apathetic because the new stuff isn't even worth pirating (because it is SO bad) and the reviews are more entertaining then the content itself that's when you know they have hit rock bottom.

      Disney forgot the #1 rule of TV: People want to have FUN watching. If I wanted to preached with ideology I'd go to church.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mmell ( 832646 )

        Agreed. The only thing any of the streaming services has to offer me is reruns. There are only so many times I can handle Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean, endless iterations of Star Trek and Law and Order, etc.

        I paid to see some of those with cash. I paid to see the rest by watching advertisements. I'm not ready to start paying for reruns just yet.

        • I suppose that wasn't always so . . . but I've memorized all of my favorite reruns through repetition. No, I don't need to pay anymore for the reruns.

        • There is SOME new content worth watching (The Magicians, The Good Place, One Piece (Live Action version)) but most of the time it is hot garbage. (3 Body Problem)

          100% agreed that there are only so many re-runs one can watch -- Mash, Star Trek (TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY), Cheers, Frasier, etc. I'm still working through my "bucket list" of TV shows to watch but I'm quickly running out. (Still need to catch up The Umbrella Academy, Cobra Kai, and Sex Education -- all which are actually well done.)

  • First of all. Every site that offers content knows people can share accounts.You know this day one. It is no surprise.

    It is part of the business model weather you actively plan it or not. Businesses are foolish to over-police accounts. It's time consuming and prone to errors without the necessary manpower to oversee it. That manpower is expensive.

    So the optimal strategy is you use it. You are giving people unauthorized free subscriptions. These people would not have purchased the service before. They get us

  • Ernest Goes To Court.

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