Freeloading off your friends’ Disney+ accounts will very soon become a thing of the past.
The streaming platform announced it is cracking down on password sharing, in an email sent out to customers on Friday.
The changes, which also apply to ESPN+ subscriptions, will limit account usage outside user households, and come into effect for new customers on January 25.
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For existing, or prior, customers who do not “acknowledge an in-app notice of the changes earlier,” the new rules will not be effective until March 14.
“You may not share your subscription outside of your household,” the update said.
It defined a household as “the collection of devices associated with your primary personal residence that are used by the people who live there”.
Disney+ revealed it may analyse account usage to determine any breaches of the new rules, and can limit or cancel the account at its sole discretion.
The rule was outlined in the Disney+ Help Centre in November 2023, but official changes to the subscriber agreement are only now coming into effect.
But while all Disney+ users will be soon required to agree to the terms and conditions to maintain an account, it remains unclear how and when the streaming platform will begin to enforce the changes.
The updated subscription agreement outlines a potential caveat whereby account sharing outside of primary households may be allowed if “permitted by your service tier”, but no extra-member tiers currently seem to be available.
This is an option that Netflix introduced when it clamped down on password sharing last year, to allow account sharing with an “extra member” outside the primary household for an additional $7.99 per month.
The account sharing change was just one point buried within a larger update about the new subscriber agreement, which also included changes to gift cards and billing timing changes.
