Disney’s password-sharing crackdown has begun

comfortablyglum@sh.itjust.works to Technology@lemmy.world – 625 points – Disney’s password-sharing crackdown has begun
theverge.com

It’s now explicitly against Disney Plus’s policies for Canadian subscribers to share passwords outside of their household.

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I cancelled all my subscription services today and fired up the ol' abandoned Plex server. I was paying for the convenience for awhile to be honest, but I'm over it now. Internet and a VPN are mostly all anybody needs anymore.

Also unlike streaming services, the tools around this stuff have only gotten better over time. It's so much easier now to set up your own personal streaming service than when I was last into it years ago.

i'm actually reverting back to pre-digital. i still collect files and some things are easier that way, but it doesn't feel quite as satisfying to play one as it does a disc or vinyl. it's cool seeing all the cases lined up on a shelf

I’ve thought about doing this, but the downside is that the physical media can deteriorate. I just started backing up my DVDs yesterday to my NAS and the first disc I pulled out was rotting.

Netflix had it, lost it due to a more competitive landscape. Now they all have reached about peak saturation and are struggling to hit those massive numbers where people are doing it willingly, they they think they can strong arm people into it. Streaming is all about convenience. Can I sit on the couch and put on something relatively engaging for a few that seems relatively reasonable? Ya? Cool. The further you move away from that model the more people start to look elsewhere. Pirating has gotten a lot, and I mean a LOT easier, and that arm is only so strong.

I used to sail the seas with great passion about 10-15 years ago. Then music, and video streaming came along and was fairly priced and I happily became a landlubber. Over the past year I've begun sailing again because all the services want a slice of a pie that's just not that big. Sailing is better than it ever was. The boats are much larger, faster and even look and sound better.

The best part is the boats just drive themselves these days as long as you use proper equipment like sonar and radar

Add in prowlarr\jacket, bazarr and gluetun (with desired torrent\usenet client) containers and you're bulletproof.

Please can you post a link to such instructions for an old sailor who is back on the boat?

How would a sailor get started readying his ship?

I started with qbittorrent, and the built-in search engine. I just activated all of them using the automatic settings and it was great. But the search engine named Jackett never worked, so I wound up going here:

https://github.com/qbittorrent/search-plugins/wiki/How-to-configure-Jackett-plugin

and after a bit I had it sorted out and working. Just make sure you follow the instructions step-by-step, and pay attention to the API key part. You don't have to go anywhere to get a key or pay anything, it's generated automatically.

Then I started looking into Sonarr. Since I had Jackett working, and Jackett will export Torznab links, transferring them over to Sonarr was pretty easy. Just copy the Torznab link and the API key into the Sonarr indexer settings, for each Jackett indexer you want to use in Sonarr. One thing I had an issue with was setting the content for each indexer, it defaults to some strange "5200", "5400" tags for some reason. If it can't detect the correct content, it won't pass the test, and you can't save the settings. I just opened up the content menu and clicked the box for everything, and then the test passed and the indexer was set up. It should be pretty straightforward after that. I had a few problems figuring out which settings and tags to use for each show (I like 4k UHD, but some shows are only 1080p, etc.) but I had things working nice after about a week.

the fact that they keep making these shitty greedy moves is undermining their core business model: how am i ever supposed to trust them to maintain a decent library and give me decent access to it when they do shit like this?

even look and sound better.

Disney Plus limits video quality on Linux to 720p.

The seas give you 4k and 5.1 audio with better convenience.

Guess it's time to increase the range of my sonar

And radar.

Did you know that jellies have fins? Crazy world

We can joke now, but we won’t be once they lobby the governments to make VPNs illegal

I always see this, but lobbying to make VPNs illegal is stupid and will never pass. So many companies use VPNs for their own security measures, they’d never allow something like that to pass.

Now that ungodly encryption back door law the UK passed, that could happen.

How about “illegal for private non business use?”

Imagine getting arrested or fined for trying to protect your own privacy. Like what the fuck.

Sorry to break it to you, but that's probably the future

I see so you don't live in the US?

No, I do. It’s just insane to think about.

I mean afaik the NSA is watching people who protect their privacy especially

I'm happy Canada doesn't really care about pirating. I have a VPN setup but it's just set to a city a few hours from me for a bit of extra precaution.

Also you don't need a VPN for Usenet :)

doesn't usenet cost money?

Not very much. Someone has to host that data and that costs money.

I need to look into usenet then, from what I understood its very location based? Seeing im in scandinavia - i should look for something close?

I subscribe to +, netfix, hulu, prime and all the cable. All my R are perpetually in order though. If i find a show/movie worthy, it gets stowed. If they f me over bad enough to leave, I'm not going empty handed.

Begun, the pirating has.

I'll try pirating, that's a good trick!

This is where the fun begins.

It never ended for those with brains.

Why pay for something you can get for free? Lol.

Unless you're a sucker.

Personally I value my time above money, as it's the one thing that you get a finite amount of.

With the ease of streaming going down, and the ease of pirating going up, I'm now back to pirating.

EDIT: now not NOT

Yeah, the only reason you're in a position to do that is because so many others are not.

Also, it's faster to stream something for free here https://fmoviesz.to/ than to add credit card information and create a new account for each streaming service that has something you want to see.

Like I said, people with more money than sense.

Anyone know if there is an easy way to cast using this with chromecase, rather than screen share? I know there is a way, but I always forget how to do it.

You can stream pretty much anything for free here: https://fmoviesz.to/

Just make sure you have uBlock Origin installed.

If you ever have issues, do an internet search for "free streaming sites reddit" and try one of those.

In many countries downloading stuff is not illegal only sharing, do with that information what you will.

Or if you don't want to give reddit any traffic, here's a couple more you can check:

yaps.cc

movie-web.app

movie-web.app

Especially this one. This is an open source front end for many movie piracy sites. It has no ads and works perfectly for me.

Wow that's crazy.

This old sailor used to sail the open seas with nothing but a few old logs lashed together with some rope, now you just showed me a nuclear powered super yacht.

See you on the high seas matey!

I never found my way to a port. Been out on the sea for so long I don't remember how land even looks like.

*arr stack is too easy, I couldn't pay for a better experience if I wanted to.

it's just so obnoxious they're pretending they get to charge more for using a website somewhere else. simultaneous streams, sure - at least that makes sense that it's something the company would know and reasonably suffer from. but the idea that you're formally tethered to somewhere is so fucking invasive and fundamentally wrong. it's the INTERNET you sick fucks. it's not like they're paying extra shipping because someone has a family in alaska.

All studios had to do was follow the path of music streaming. It’s practically rid of piracy on a mass market because most streaming service has practically the same content. So it’s a matter of user experience they’re competing with, not the content they host.

They'd be losing even more money.

Netflix is profitable, Spotify never was. The differences between the realm of movies and music are so numerous that I won't even bother listing them. Music and movies studios concerns are vastly differents, their economic realities are vastly differents, the product is too.

I cancelled my Netflix the moment that announced their new account sharing policy, which, looking back on it was probably too early for it to count as protest. I don't personally share my account, but I knew that if they were able to pull it off that every other streaming service and probably other services would do the same thing.

Consumers can beat these large corporations, but only when they stand up for themselves. See Wizards of the Coast and Unity. Unfortunately Netflix subscribers did not, and now this is the new standard.

Canceled once they started enforcing the new policy in Germany. I will the same once Disney does it. I have kids in school that use it and when it is not for the whole family anymore it is not interesting enough anymore.

I am tired of especially Disney saying they are losing money on the service. Loosing how? It is produced and paid for. Then strengthen your brand by making every household with kids paying you a monthly fee instead of picking up dvds at a yard sale.

Beancounters telling you you missing out on sales you never had in the first place and never will have.

Ahh, may they join Netflix in their journey to 0% then negative revenue. These corporations look at their subscribers with disdain and assume no matter what they do, subscribers will be dumb enough to be treated poorly and still pay them. Netflix is losing subscribers who pay $16 - $20 and replacing them with those that pay half as much. Then they shout from the rooftops that they are gaining subscribers. They've set their trajectory towards their doom. Watching them all burn will be great.

Do it like me: never subscribe! Ez gg

Disney+ quality has been decreasing lately. If it weren't for huge Disney animated movies collection there that the kids play on repeat, half of the people wouldn't bother with Disney+.

Thank God I never bothered with their bullshit in the first place

Jokes on them, if (when) this reaches the US, I'm going to stop regularly subscribing. The only reason I usually have a subscription is for my nephews in another state. If I'm no longer subscribing for them, I'm just going to subscribe when a show I want to watch is on, so 1-3 months a year.

They don't really care tbh. A few may cancel their subscription but enough will continue to justify the decision. Netflix stats are already available to see.

May it go as well as the Netflix password-sharing crackdown (id est, followed by a flood of unsubscribes).

I hate Netflix as much as the next guy but let's not shield our eyes from reality. Their move was actually very successful. A small percentage of people unsubscribed, but that number was dwindled by the number of new subscribers. Netflix basically proved that people for the most part don't care and will subscribe just to keep watching. Of course Disney and others will follow suit after seeing that.

We don't have the metrics yet to see if they stay subscribed. Look at it this way, Lemmy grows and shrinks by leaps and bounds every time reddit does something crazy. Same principle. This also doesn't take into account people wanting to subscribe to finish a show and then unsubscribe afterwards.

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Cant you just set things up with a router to tunnel your disney+ connection through a device at your family members house so you streaming from 1500 miles away looks like its coming from their house?

It’s far easier and more performant to simply pirate what you want to watch.

Eh, still need a VPN for that so your ISP cant send you pissy emails about what you're doing.

Easy to vpn on a desktop, download, and put things on Plex.

Harder to setup a vpn tunnel to another house and configure only your tv to use it.

You gave your TV internet access, with how much they are known to spy on you?

Blegh.

What if I GOTO a friend's house and sign in using my own account, then tmforgetting it's there, will I get in thenshit with Disney? This anti password sharing thing is dumb af.

I thought this was about internal security policy until I remembered that they have a streaming service.

It is about password security. Nobody should be sharing their passwords, because that is dumb and risky.

I have little sympathy for all the complainers that hate these streaming password sharing restrictions. I've never done it, and never will. I pay for all my own streaming services. They are cheap expenses, not worth compromising your accounts' security.

Cancel your shit if you don't like it, but you can't act like you have the moral high horse if you're violating the terms of service you agreed to.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Starting on November 1st, Disney Plus will begin restricting password sharing.

Disney has not provided many details on how it plans to enforce this policy — its email merely states that “we’re implementing restrictions on your ability to share your account or login credentials outside of your household”.

The announcement comes over a month after Disney’s Q3 earnings call, where CEO Bob Iger said that the company was “actively exploring” ways to address shared accounts.

Disney Plus is just the latest streaming service to attempt to tackle password sharing.

Netflix accounts are restricted based on a user’s IP address; subscribers, depending on the plan they select, have the option of adding additional members to their accounts for an additional fee.

But hey, if it’s any consolation: Canadian users now have access to the cheaper ad-supported tier.

The original article contains 294 words, the summary contains 136 words. Saved 54%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

I get Disney+ because I got some deal from my ISP. Outside of Andor, there is no series worth watching on Disney+. I've watched through all of the Marvel stuff I care about (or I already own my favorites like Guardians of the Galaxy). If I wasn't getting it for free I certainly wouldn't pay for it.

I'd order the big streaming services like this: Apple+, Amazon Prime, HBO Max, Netflix, Hulu, then Disney+ way down that list.

I think Apple+, even with a limited catalogue has some of the best content going.

Simpsons, Futurama, the bear, modern family, mandalorian, atlanta and it's always sunny are all also on Disney plus and absolutely top tier content

Obviously you should do whatever you want with your money but if you're sleeping on some of the ones I suggested, definitely check them out before cancelling!

Are these on Disney+?? I thought the Bear was on Hulu? (Its always sunny, atlana, modern family, the bear, futurama dont show up when I search for them on Disney+). As far as Hulu goes, as long as I can get the blackfriday $.99/mo deal again this year I'll keep them. Ive created a new account each year on blackfriday for the last 3 or 4 years now).

BTW, the Mandolorian is just not great. I liked it at first and I was holding out hope that it would age like wine, but it hasn't held up for me. Ashoka is just bad. Rosario is wooden, the dialogue has these awkward 1-4 second pauses between the lines--where they just look at each other. It doesn't feel natural. Maybe its just bad acting.

Oh, might be different for me since I'm in canada -- fair enough

Let's agree to disagree on the mandalorian, I think it's got the best vibe. It's just fucking cool

The new Futurama is so bad that I wish it was never renewed.

These services really seem to want me to uninstall them

This guy looks like he’s gonna try and have an intellectual convo with Dr Jones, even though he’s sold his integrity to the Nazi’s at the chance to unleash the true evil power of streaming services. But Dr Jones won’t have it and this guy will be whipped milk before he’s done. The end

who subbed to d+ anyways? i can understand if it's for younger kids with the cartoons and all, but the rest is just horribly bad. maybe the old fox catalogue could cut them some slack, but even xfiles and 24 could save them on the long run. star wars and marvel are dead, too.

Disney plug is better in the Nordics anyway.

They have a bunch of non Disney stuff too.

Usually people with more money than sense.

I haven't seen a single intelligent person that knows their way around a computer subscribing to disney plus.

I think they gave up after netflix went to shit and just started torrenting/streaming.