DISNEY+ has begun blocking password-sharing between friends and family, in a controversial move that has soured customers.
The decision to force each household to have their own account was inspired by Netflix, which enacted its own blockade last summer.
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Disney+ boss Bob Igor warned of the crackdown a year before it came into effect, after revealing the company had the “technical capability” to monitor sign-ins.
The ban will start in a “few countries” first, including the UK and the US, ahead of a worldwide release in September.
It will prevent customers from sharing their login details with people outside of their household.
Subscribers will be charged an “additional fee” to watch Disney+ on multiple devices outside of their home.
How does Disney+ know I’m sharing accounts?
Like Netflix, Disney+ will track its users IP addresses (as well as device IDs and account activity) to determine whether viewers are in the same household or not.
In the company’s UK Help Centre, it states: “You may not share your subscription outside of your household”.
Disney+ now defines a household as the primary personal residence of the account that pays the bills, and the devices under that roof.
So only people who live in the primary personal residence will be able to watch from the Disney+ linked to that address.
Subscribers will be able to watch it outside of their home, but only for a limited amount of time.
In Disney’s new Subscriber’s Agreements, it states: “Unless otherwise permitted by your Service Plan, you may not share your subscription outside of your household.”
Any users seen to have “violated this agreement” can have their Disney+ accounts restricted or banned.
The aim is to boost subscribership and profits.
After Netflix’s own crackdown, the streamer’s profits in the first quarter of 2024 climbed to more than $2.3bn (£1.85bn), increasing total subscribers to 270million.
But customers say its “greedy”, and that additional fees are spiralling out of control.
“The day I travel out for a few days and I’m locked out because I’m not under the same roof, is the day I cancel my account,” one customer wrote on Reddit.
“They may argue the timing is a month, we all know that limit is going to change, and they’ll start charging a Traveling Convenience Fee if you plan to go on vacation and use it.”
Another wrote: “Jokes on you, I already cancelled my subscription when you started limiting linux streams to 480p.”
A third onlooker added: “I have cancelled every single entertainment subscription and I’ll never be back.
“They have absolutely lost me as a customer and I used to have subscriptions to everything…
“My wallet is happy and I do not care about missing a dumb show or exclusive movie.
“We really had it great for a while though, then all these companies got greedy.”