Disney Plus password sharing is apparently OK – until people start abusing it

Disney is not taking the hardline stance with Disney Plus password sharing many had been led to expect – at least not yet.

On launch day for the long-awaited platform, Disney is enabling four concurrent streams at the same time and a whopping seven user profiles, and it appears there’ll be plenty of scope for spreading the love among friends and family.

In an interview with CNBC ahead of the launch, the president of Disney Streaming Services Michael Paull said he hopes customers don’t take the proverbial Michael when sharing their passwords, in part because the service is so cheap.

“Password sharing is definitely something we think about. We believe that consumers will see that value, and they’re going to act accordingly,” he said during a media preview for Disney Plus (via The Verge). “They’re going to use those accounts for their family, for their household. That being said, we do recognise password sharing exists and will continue to exist.”

So, roughly translated, that means so long as people don’t go overboard then they are probably good to share the password with one or two close people.

Paull continues: “We have created some technology that’s in the backend that we will use to understand behaviour. And when we see behaviour that doesn’t make sense, we have mechanisms that we’ve put in place that will deal with it.”

Earlier this year, it emerged Disney had partnered with US cable company Charter to “work together on piracy mitigation. The two companies will work together to implement business rules and techniques to address such issues as unauthorised access and password sharing.”

Piracy is going to be a major concern for Disney at the offset, given the limited availability of the service at launch. Brits desperate to tune into new shows like The Mandalorian might not be willing to wait until March 31 in order to tune in.