Disney Plus viewers face £60 fines in crackdown from streaming service

Disney+ has followed in the footsteps of streaming giant Netflix and begun charging for password sharing.

A major TV streaming platform is set to charge up to £60 more if you share your account following Netflix's crackdown. Disney+ has followed in the footsteps of streaming giant Netflix and begun charging for password sharing.

If you share your Disney+ account with friends or family who don't live with you, you'll now need to pay up to £4.99 a month extra to do so, as the streaming service has clamped down on password sharing.

Disney Plus, which is the home of Marvel, and shows like Agatha All Along, as well as Only Murders in the Building on Star, will automatically set up a 'Household' for your account based on the devices you use and your 'primary residence'.

READ MORE Drivers have £33-a-day charge axed in huge victory for motorists

If you log in while you're away from home, you'll need to verify your account using a one-time passcode sent to your email. If you do want to share the account with someone else you'll need to buy a separate "extra member" profile.

On top of your base price, it'll cost £3.99 a month if you have a "standard with ads" plan and £4.99 a month if you've got a standard or premium plan. You'll need to proactively buy the extra profile. It's not yet clear if or how Disney+ will enforce the new policy.

And you can only buy ONE Extra Member add-on per account. The crackdown comes after a similar move from Netflix. "Your Disney+ subscription is meant to be used within your household, which is a collection of devices associated with your primary personal residence that are used by the individuals who reside there," the entertainment giant told customers in a message.

Those residing elsewhere "will need to sign up and pay for their own subscription or be added as an extra member to your account for an additional fee." Netflix said it would launch a paid password-sharing program globally in the second quarter of the year, including in the U.S. The company had earlier said it planned to introduce it by the end of March.

"That launch we're doing in Q2 is a very broad launch, it includes the United States, it includes many, many other countries," Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters told investors.