Passwords and security will be a major part of the Disney Plus platform, Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Iger revealed in a new interview.
Iger said the company isn’t concerned with password sharing — the practice of sharing one password with families and friends for all to use — when it comes to its new streaming service platform, which launches Thursday.
“I think it’ll be similar to what others are doing. It’s obviously something we’ll be mindful of,” Iger told CNBC. “We’re setting up a service that is very family-friendly, we expect families to be able to consume it — four live streams at a time, for instance. We’ll watch it carefully with the various tools, technology tools, that we have available to us to monitor it. But it’s obviously something we have to watch.”
But Iger said the company will consider piracy’s impact on Disney Plus. He said piracy is “obviously something we have to watch.”
In an investors call last Thursday, Iger said Disney Plus’ four-stream feature proved popular with test users in the Netherlands, according to a report on the call from ComicBook.com.
“We also saw that people’s interest in the product itself was very, very broad meaning across all of the brands,” Iger said on the call, pointing to the streaming service’s five main brands: Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars and National Geographic.
“We learned that some of the features, including the 4K, the HDR movies were very, very popular,” Iger added. “The fact that you can have four concurrent live streams was very popular, the personalization was also quite popular, and most importantly, the ability to download without restriction was very, very popular.”
Iger’s recent comments come as other popular streaming services look to cut down on allowing password sharing. The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment — a coalition of entertainment companies and film studios — announced it would work to crack down on password sharing, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Netflix, Hulu and HBO have similarly looked to stop the widespread practice of password sharing, which limits the company on maximizing from customer potential, The Los Angeles Times reported.
Companies could start using two-factor authentication to crack down on passwords, or even require you to share your fingerprints or facial recognition, according to Popular Mechanics.
Random password resets could also be an option.
“So what can you do? If you’re absolutely, positively, resolutely against paying for multiple streaming services directly, you can ease your pain by paying for other services that include these subscriptions,” Popular Mechanics reported.