We’ve known for months that Warner Bros. Discovery plans to follow in Netflix’s footsteps with a password-sharing crackdown for its Max streaming service. The move certainly worked out well for Netflix, which added millions of subscribers when it started enforcing its password-sharing ban last year. Other streamers watched from the sidelines while they pondered similar measures.
Disney confirmed in April that it plans to crack down on Disney Plus password sharing. Then, the company started enforcing the new policies only a few weeks ago. Now, it looks like Max will be next in line.
The first report detailing Max’s potential plan to stop password sharing came in early March, weeks before Bob Iger detailed Disney’s timeline for its own plan. The report said Max would first launch in new markets, with the expansion plan to last some 18 months. The password-sharing crackdown would then start in late 2024 and roll out throughout 2025.
A few weeks ago during the company’s latest earnings call, Warner Bros. Discovery CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels confirmed that the Max password-sharing crackdown will start with “very soft messaging” this year. Max will then apply more pressure on password sharers with additional measures.
Fast-forward to early December and Warner Bros. Discovery confirmed the password-sharing ban is coming. According to Deadline, a different exec mentioned the company’s plans this time around.
JB Perrette, Warner’s CEO and President of Global Streaming and Games, said at the Wells Fargo TMT Summit in Rancho Palos Verde that certain Max subscribers will soon see “some very early, gentle messaging” about password sharing in the next week or so.
“This is an art and a science to try and tighten the filter of who’s in there. We’ll start some early messaging with some people who we think are in the higher tier of usage,” Perrette said. “We will offer a way to essentially add a member, starting in the first quarter. We will then start gradually as we get the data and start figuring out, with some explicit and implicit signals, how good we are at detecting. And then as we go through ’25, you’re going to see the filters get tighter and tighter.”
From the sound of it, you don’t have to worry about getting your Max affairs in order until the first quarter of 2025 at the earliest. If you’re a heavy password sharer, you might be hit with Max’s “gentle messaging” soon, but you won’t have to do anything about it just yet.
However, it sounds like Max will eventually implement the same measures as Netflix and Disney Plus. We’re probably looking at household verifications for Max password-sharing. Users will have the option of adding at least one paying member to the account. That’s similar to what you can do with Netflix and Disney Plus to continue sharing access to the same account.
Coincidentally, Netflix has been more aggressive recently at enforcing its password-sharing ban. It started happening soon after Disney began sending out its household checks. There must be something in the air.
