Disney+ to begin cracking down on password sharing in Canada in November

Disney will begin cracking down on password sharing in Canada as of November 1st, 2023.

In an email sent to the service’s Canadian subscribers on Tuesday evening, the company outlined updates to its Subscriber Agreement.

While Disney begins the email by saying new terms have been put forth to coincide with the November 1st launch of its ad-supported membership, it also notes that it is now “implementing restrictions on account sharing.” While Disney’s previous terms also stated that users can’t share their accounts, it never enforced this.

In this new agreement, a dedicated “account sharing” section is now featured to list the following limitations:

“Unless otherwise permitted by your Service Tier, you may not share your subscription outside of your household. “Household” means the collection of devices associated with your primary personal residence that are used by the individuals who reside therein. Additional usage rules may apply for certain Service Tiers.

We may, in our sole discretion, analyze the use of your account to determine compliance with this Agreement. If we determine that you have violated this Agreement, we may limit or terminate access to the Service and/or take any other steps as permitted by this Agreement (including those set forth in Section 6 of this Agreement).

You will be responsible for any use of your account by your household, including compliance with this section.”

All of this takes effect across Canada on November 1st, with the exception of annual subscribers in Quebec, “for whom the updated Subscriber Agreement will be effective on their next billing date, on or after November 1st, 2023.”

Interestingly, Disney opens this account sharing section by mentioning “unless otherwise permitted by your Service Tier.” Netflix, the first streamer to crack down on free password sharing, allows those subscribed to its higher tiers to pay an additional $7.99/month to add on ‘Extra Members,’ people outside of their household who can access your account. Therefore, it remains to be seen whether Disney intends to permit those subscribed to certain Disney+ memberships (“Service Tiers”) to do something similar.

It’s worth noting that Disney CEO Bob Iger had confirmed in August that the company would indeed crack down on password sharing, but he indicated this would likely take place next year. Of course, the updated agreement doesn’t necessarily mean Disney will immediately enforce password sharing as of November 1st, especially as Netflix has seemingly inconsistently been doing so on its own platform.

Nonetheless, Disney+ users have now been explicitly warned and should prepare accordingly come November.

Source: Disney