Disney cracks down on password sharing in India

Disney is reportedly to follow Netflix by cracking down on password sharing in India.

Disney Hotstar’s local streaming service will implement a new policy of allowing premium users to log in to the service from a maximum of four devices, according to Reuters.

Currently, premium account holders to the Disney+ Hotstar streamer can access the service on up to 10 devices, despite information for subscribers telling them that they are limited to four.

According to the report, Disney+ Hotstar has begun internal testing of its new policy and plans to implement it more strictly later this year.

Reuters says that Disney will also crack down on sharing in its cheaper plan, with plans to limit users to two devices in this case.

Disney’s move comes after rival Netflix extended its own crackdown on password sharing in the Indian market last month, having earlier launched its ‘paid sharing’ plan incentivising ‘sharing’ users to sign up for their own accounts.

Netflix contacted users in India to tell them that their Netflix account for use by a single household, enabling users within that household to view content on the service wherever they are and take advantage of features such as Transfer Profile.

Netflix posted strong subscriber net adds in its last quarterly financial report to the end of June, suggesting that its ‘paid sharing’ initiative was paying off.

Netflix extended its password sharing crackdown to 100 markets in May, including the UK and US, having tested it in Latin American before extending the policy to Canada, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain.