This Monday, HBO Max sent an email to all its French subscribers to announce that the Conditions of use Warner Bros Discovery streaming platform – formerly HBO, formerly max – were going to be updates. Nothing special in appearance is the kind of email that we systematically receive with each change of comma, as was the case last July for example.
Except that this update brings a major change for users of the SVOD service since HBO Max takes the same direction as its competitors before it, like Netflix (which opened the Pandora box) or Disney+. The service decided to end the account sharing outside the main home.
Under these new conditions, which will return in force next October 23a change took place at point 2.24 concerning authorized users. A clarification has been provided: “the term” home “designates all the devices connected to the same internet connection associated with your main residence and used by the people who live there”.
If the paragraph does not explicitly point to account sharing, the exact designation of what the platform intends by « foyer » no doubt about its nature: The same Internet connection. So anyone connecting to your HBO Max account out of your home is in violation, including if you do not provide proof of hacking.
So far, the conditions of use have been content to declare that authorized users should be members of the home, but the nature of it being blurredthe account sharing to an external person was legally unomeniable.
One possibility exists and a strategy that works
However, these special conditions apply to HBO Max subscribers. Regarding third -party suppliers, users must respect the terms of the supplier’s contract in question. However, the service is included in France in some Canal+ offers: Canal+ Ciné Series and Canal+ Total. Subscribers to these offers are therefore under the regime of the French platform which has not yet explicitly prohibited this kind of sharing.
The end of account sharing has become one of the battle horses of streaming services that seek to increase their number of subscribers by forcing restrictions. On paper, this can encourage the return of hacking, but Netflix has proven that the strategy was working with a constant increase in their users worldwide, with a leap when this ban has been implemented. It didn’t take long for Disney+ to follow suit.
It remains to be seen whether this direction taken by HBO Max will walk both in France while the streaming platform is the most recent on the market and does not yet have content capable of competing with its consumers. The service surely put on the production of series as Harry Potter or the upcoming return of the series of the universe Game of Thrones To capitalize on the hypothesis of an increase in subscriptions.
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