Streaming platform Disney+Hotstar, owned by Walt Disney, is reportedly planning to implement measures to limit password sharing among its premium users in India, following a similar approach taken by Netflix.
Disney’s plan comes just as streaming rival Netflix in May started telling subscribers in more than 100 countries they will need to pay
more to share the service with people outside their household. In India, despite Disney+ Hotstar’s website stating a limit of four devices that can be logged in, a premium account still allows logins on up to 10 devices for streaming.
Disney+ Hotstar has conducted internal tests to enforce the policy and intends to implement it later this year, restricting logins to four devices for such accounts. This change is likely to encourage some users to purchase their own subscriptions, sources told Reuters.
According to the report, Disney+ Hotstar in India did not enforce the four-device login policy as it did not want to inconvenience premium users and had detected internally that only around 5 per cent of its premium subscribers logged in from more than four devices.
The new planned restriction will also apply to its cheaper plan which will limit usage across two devices, Reuters reported.
Recently, Netflix introduced a new password-sharing policy in India, which is slightly different from its global strategy. For Netflix users in India, there is no option to pay an additional fee to use the same account by multiple people. You have to be in the same household to use the same Netflix account.
“A Netflix account is for use by one household. Everyone living in that household can use Netflix wherever they are - at home, on the go, on holiday - and take advantage of new features like Transfer Profile and Manage Access and Devices," the company stated in a release.
In India, Netflix users have been able to use one account across multiple households, which allows them to split the subscription fee among friends or relatives. Now, Netflix will now allow only users on the same internet connection to access a particular account. Anybody who is not a part of the “Netflix Household" will not be able to access the content.