According to the Financial Times, Universal Music Group and Google are considering developing a tool that people can use to create AI-generated music using popular artists' voices and melodies. Gizmodo reports: Under the licensing deal, the relevant copyright owners would be paid for the use of their likeness and would have the option to opt in to give UMG and Google permission to license AI-generated music using their voice, per the FT. Google and UMG are in the early stages of negotiations over creating the deepfake tool, and there aren't currently any plans to immediately launch it.

Robert Kyncl, the CEO of Warner Music Group, voiced his opposition to deepfake technology in a conference earnings call on Tuesday, saying artists should always have a choice if they'll allow their likeness to be used. "There's nothing more precious to an artist than their voice," Kyncl said in the call, "and protecting their voice is protecting their livelihood and protecting their persona."

Disney is raising prices on almost all of its streaming offerings as it looks to accelerate profitability for the business. CNBC reports: Commercial-free Disney+ will cost $13.99 per month, a 27% increase, beginning Oct. 12. Disney+ with ads will remain $7.99 per month. Disney will also expand its ad-tier offering to select markets in Europe and in Canada beginning Nov. 1. Disney is increasing the price of Hulu without ads to $17.99 per month, a 20% price hike. Hulu with ads will also stay the same price, at $7.99 per month. The decision to price Disney+ nearly as high as commercial-free Netflix and Max, and charge even more for Hulu, signals Disney believes its content library can compete with both of those services.

Disney is now betting consumers will pay more for its streaming services even as the Hollywood writers and actors strikes threaten its content pipeline in the coming months. For consumers who want both Disney+ and Hulu without commercials, they can pay $19.99 per month in a new "premium duo" offering -- a $12 per month savings. The Disney+ and Hulu bundle with ads will not change from its $9.99 per month price. Disney also increased the price of its bundle of Disney+ (no ads), Hulu (no ads) and ESPN+ (with ads) to $24.99 per month from $19.99 per month. The bundle of all three products with commercials will be $14.99 per month, an increase of $2 per month. Disney is also increasing the price of Hulu + Live TV with ads to $76.99 from $69.99 per month. The commercial-free Hulu + Live TV will jump to $89.99 per month from $82.99 per month.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Gizmodo editor-in-chief Daniel Ackerman has sued Apple and other parties over the 2023 Apple TV Plus film Tetris, alleging it rips off his 2016 book The Tetris Effect. Ackerman claims Apple, Tetris rightsholder the Tetris Company, the Tetris film's producers, and screenwriter Noah Pink copied "the exact same feel, tone, approach, and scenes" from The Tetris Effect -- particularly its framing of the game's release as a "Cold War spy thriller." Initially reported by Reuters, Ackerman's lawsuit (PDF) outlines a yearslong correspondence with the Tetris Company as he wrote The Tetris Effect. He claims that the Tetris Company was aware of his work and threatened him with legal action for trying to pursue film and TV adaptations of his own book, only to draw heavily from his framing of the Tetris story. "The film liberally borrowed numerous specific sections and events of the book," claims Ackerman.

Apple and the Tetris Company did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Verge. But Ackerman's case may be difficult given the fact that Tetris and The Tetris Effect both draw on real historical facts, which are not generally protected by copyright law. As a result, the suit relies heavily on arguing that Tetris copies the feel of The Tetris Effect. (He also argues that some potential inventions of the film -- like a guide who turns out to be a secret KGB agent -- are based on speculations in his narrative.) "Ackerman's book took a unique approach to writing about the real history of Tetris, as it not only applied the historical record, but also layered his own original research and ingenuity to create a compelling narrative non-fiction book in the style of a Cold War spy thriller," the suit says. "Mr. Ackerman's literary masterpiece, unlike other articles and writings, dispelled of the emphasis on the actual gameplay and fans, and instead concentrated on the surrounding narrative, action sequences, and adversarial relationship between the players ... This was the identical approach Defendants adopted for the Tetris Film, without notable material distinction."

Ackerman says that he reached out after the Tetris trailer's release and unsuccessfully requested Apple and the other defendants address legal issues before the film's release. His suit alleges copyright infringement and unfair competition, among other offenses.

The Original High-C writes: Dear Commander Taco,

I hope you are well, as the world is increasingly 'mid', as the kids say. I am the guy whose story you published 17 years ago about a nerd rap compilation. We had a wild ride, as documented in this, um, documentary on Amazon Prime.

Long after anyone stopped caring, I finally released my first free-as-in-beer album. This song tells the story of the ultimate demise of the scene, and I felt it was a fitting bookend for our first chapter. Maybe 2.0 will be better? Thanks for all you did for us, if no one ever told you before.

Sincerely,

The Original High-C

Treasure hunters are aiming to prove there were tons of loot in the ground in Pennsylvania -- and that the government took it. WSJ: Dennis Parada points to a weedy spot where he believes the Federal Bureau of Investigation dug up nine tons of Civil War-era gold, worth more than $500 million, and made off with it in the middle of the night. The patch of ground halfway up a mountain in western Pennsylvania lies at the heart of the treasure hunter's quest to recover the trove and prove it was snatched from under his nose. The matter is now playing out in federal court.

At 70, he has been chasing the Dents Run gold for more than 40 years. "It's definitely a major coverup," says Parada, who has the mustache of a 19th-century gambler and smokes his cigarettes down to a stub. Tales of lost Civil War-era gold have stirred imaginations for generations though few fortunes have been made. One exception was a pile of more than 700 gold coins minted in the mid-1800s that a farmer unearthed in a Kentucky cornfield earlier this year.

In April 1865, Confederate President Jefferson Davis fled Richmond, Va., with gold that would be worth millions today. Union troops later seized a large portion in Georgia, but that was then stolen at gunpoint. Other stories of lost Confederate gold abound in the South. People across the U.S. have hunted for lost rebel treasure in Virginia, Georgia, Arkansas, Missouri -- and the bottom of Lake Michigan. The searches have inspired novels and films, including "The Good, The Bad and the Ugly," starring Clint Eastwood. Far less attention has been paid to tales of Union gold.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Production companies are scanning the faces and bodies of actors and actresses, who fear their likeness will be used to create fake AI doubles for TV shows and films in the future. Some workers spoke to NPR last week about being subjected to the scans, and feeling like they couldn't say no. Alexandria Rubalcaba, who was working as a background actor, described being called into a trailer and asked to stand in front of cameras.

"Have your hands out. Have your hands in. Look this way. Look that way. Let us see your scared face. Let us see your surprised face," she said. What was most concerning, however, was that she didn't know what or how her images were going to be used. "My first thought leaving the trailer was, 'Oh this might just be the future," Lubsey said. "We might just lose our jobs," Dom Lubsey, an actor from Los Angeles, added. Studios already use computational techniques to create synthetic images of people to create fake crowds for backgrounds in films.

It's not too far-fetched to think that extras can also be generated too. Andrew Susskind, an associate professor at Drexel University's film and TV department, explained how AI-made background actors would slash production budgets. "Imagine ballroom scenes, party scenes, any scenes that need tons of extras," Susskind said. "Imagine the amounts of money they would be saving. Not paying $180 a day. Plus meals. Plus costuming," he said.

The Excel World Championship is coming back to ESPN this week. On Friday morning at 7AM ET, as part of ESPN's annual "The Ocho" event, a few of the world's foremost Excel experts will battle to solve puzzles on the biggest stage in sports. From a report: The Ocho is an ESPN event designed to show off otherwise un-televised sports -- Excel is on the docket alongside "2023 Slippery Stairs," the "Pillow Fight Championship," and competitions in everything from belt-sanding to sign spinning -- but it's still a big deal. When competitive Excel showed up on the network last year, the sport found a whole new audience. More than 800,000 people have since watched the full 2.5-hour competition on YouTube (ESPN showed a 30-minute edit of the battle), and the folks who started the World Championship say it changed the event's trajectory forever.

Meta on Wednesday introduced its open-source AI tool called AudioCraft that will help users to create music and audio based on text prompts. Reuters reports: The AI tool is bundled with three models, AudioGen, EnCodec and MusicGen, and works for music, sound, compression and generation, Meta said. MusicGen is trained using company-owned and specifically licensed music, it added. From Meta's press release: The AudioCraft family of models are capable of producing high-quality audio with long-term consistency, and they're easy to use. With AudioCraft, we simplify the overall design of generative models for audio compared to prior work in the field -- giving people the full recipe to play with the existing models that Meta has been developing over the past several years while also empowering them to push the limits and develop their own models.

AudioCraft works for music, sound, compression, and generation -- all in the same place. Because it's easy to build on and reuse, people who want to build better sound generators, compression algorithms, or music generators can do it all in the same code base and build on top of what others have done. Having a solid open source foundation will foster innovation and complement the way we produce and listen to audio and music in the future. With even more controls, we think MusicGen can turn into a new type of instrument -- just like synthesizers when they first appeared.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Film companies lost another attempt to force Reddit to identify anonymous users who discussed piracy. A federal court on Saturday quashed a subpoena (PDF) demanding users' names and other identifying details, agreeing with Reddit's argument that the film companies' demands violate the First Amendment. The plaintiffs are 20 producers of popular movies who are trying to prove that Internet service provider Grande is liable for its subscribers' copyright infringement because the ISP allegedly ignores piracy on its network. Reddit isn't directly involved in the copyright case. But the film companies filed a motion to compel Reddit to respond to a subpoena demanding "basic account information including IP address registration and logs from 1/1/2016 to present, name, email address and other account registration information" for six users who wrote comments on Reddit threads in 2011 and 2018.

"The issue is whether that discovery is permissible despite the users' right to speak anonymously under the First Amendment," US Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler wrote in her ruling against the film copyright holders. "The court denies the motion because the plaintiffs have not demonstrated a compelling need for the discovery that outweighs the users' First Amendment right to anonymous speech." The film companies seeking Reddit users' identities include After II Movie LLC, Bodyguard Productions, Hitman 2 Productions, Millennium Funding, Nikola Productions, Rambo V Productions, and Dallas Buyers Club LLC. As Beeler's ruling on Saturday noted, they sought the identities of two users who wrote about torrenting on Grande's network in 2018 [...]. The companies also sought identities of four users who commented in a 2011 thread. "I have grande. No issues with torrent or bandwidth caps," one user comment said. Another Reddit user wrote, "I have torrented like a motherfucker all over grande and have never seen anything." Reddit's filing (PDF) pointed out that the statute of limitations for copyright infringement is three years. The film companies said (PDF) the statute of limitations is irrelevant to whether the comments can provide evidence in the case against Grande.

A proposed state tax in Massachusetts on streaming video services could increase prices for popular platforms like Netflix and Hulu, as the 5 percent fee would support approximately 200 community access cable channels struggling due to declining cable subscriptions. The Boston Globe reports: In July, the Joint Committee on Advanced Information Technology held hearings on legislation filed by Democratic State Representative Joan Meschino and Republican Representative Mathew J. Muratore, both of Plymouth. Their bill would require streaming video companies to pay a 5 percent fee on the gross revenues generated in the state. The estimated $65 million a year raised by the fee would support roughly 200 community access channels, the most in any state. The community channels are run by nonprofit organizations or town governments, and funded by cable TV companies, which are assessed a fee by local governments for the right to run their cables through city property. The cable companies pass the cost on to subscribers.

But subscriptions are plummeting as US consumers abandon pay TV for streaming services. Cable and satellite subscribers now number about 70 million, down more than 25 percent from 95.5 million a decade ago, according to Leichtman Research Group, a New Hampshire research and analysis company specializing in media, entertainment, and broadband industries. "The next three to five years it's really going to dry up even more so," said Muratore. Meschino said citizens can't afford to lose access to community media channels, because so many local newspapers have shut down. "There's literally no other way to consume that sort of hyperlocal programming," Meschino said.

About a dozen US states levy sales taxes on consumers' streaming video bills. But Meschino said that sales tax money goes into each state's general fund. Instead, she wants the streaming fee to be dedicated entirely to support for community media services, just like the fee paid by traditional cable TV companies. Some or all of the fees would likely be passed on to consumers. Gauthier estimates that a typical household's costs could rise about $2.40 a month, spread among several streaming networks. "Maybe it'll be 75 cents for your Amazon," he said. "Maybe it'll be 80 cents for your Disney."

Amazon will soon require international app developers who offer ad-supported streaming video services available to Fire TV users to opt into their in-house ad publishing service or, where unavailable, offer up a cut of their ad revenue. From a report: Starting September 1, Amazon will enforce a new developer policy that requires domestic and foreign streaming services to allocate 30% of their in-country advertising impressions to Amazon. Developers who offer up ad-supported Fire TV apps in the United States and whose apps see 50,000 hours or more usage in a given month will be required to enroll in Amazon Publishing Services (APS). The same applies for ad-supported Fire TV apps developed and distributed outside the United States, except the threshold is lowered to 30,000 hours of use per month.

In countries where APS isn't available, Amazon will require ad-supported streaming video services to provide 30% of their ad revenue to the company, starting September 30. Amazon will contact app developers in those countries to notify them of the requirement, the developer's note said.

"Oscar-winning Canadian filmmaker James Cameron says he agrees with experts in the AI field that advancements in the technology pose a serious risk to humanity," reports CTV: Many of the so-called godfathers of AI have recently issued warnings about the need to regulate the rapidly advancing technology before it poses a larger threat to humanity. "I absolutely share their concern," Cameron told CTV News Chief Political Correspondent Vassy Kapelos in a Canadian exclusive interview... "I warned you guys in 1984, and you didn't listen," he said...

"I think the weaponization of AI is the biggest danger," he said. "I think that we will get into the equivalent of a nuclear arms race with AI, and if we don't build it, the other guys are for sure going to build it, and so then it'll escalate... You could imagine an AI in a combat theatre, the whole thing just being fought by the computers at a speed humans can no longer intercede, and you have no ability to deescalate..."

Cameron said Tuesday he doesn't believe the technology is or will soon be at a level of replacing writers, especially because "it's never an issue of who wrote it, it's a question of, is it a good story...? I just don't personally believe that a disembodied mind that's just regurgitating what other embodied minds have said — about the life that they've had, about love, about lying, about fear, about mortality — and just put it all together into a word salad and then regurgitate it ... I don't believe that have something that's going to move an audience," he said.
But the article notes about 160,000 actors and other media professionals are on strike, partly over "the use of AI and its need for regulation."

SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher has told reporters that if actors don't "stand tall right now... We are all going to be in jeopardy of being replaced by machines."

A documentary series by Moleman Films reached its 5th episode, a 144-minute film about "the golden age of Hungarian video gaming and the formation of the Hungarian demoscene in the 80s and 90s." You can watch this episode on YouTube (and English subtitles can be selected). From Commodore 64s smuggled across the Iron Curtain to cracked games on cassette tapes sold at flea markets, floppy disk swapping via postal mail, hacked phone booths connected to U.S. BBSes, and copy parties packed to capacity, Stamps Back tells the story of how teenagers in Hungary ignited a computing revolution in the 1980s with illegally copied video games from the West, and began the Hungarian demoscene.
But the filmmakers say "We received a lot of feedback that you would like to see the full-length interviews...in a physical special edition." So they've launched a campaign on Crowdfundr: More than 76 hours of interviews [with 59 people] were conducted for the film, which is a true document of the Hungarian home computer life in the 1980s and 1990s. You can now get this 76-hour material with English subtitles together with the film in a special Blu-Ray edition + downloadable image file format...

If we reach the stretch goal, a 4th disc will be added to the edition, which will contain a selection of the best Hungarian intros and demos of the past 40 years in video format.
The film's web site includes links to (and information on) their four previous documentaries:

• The Truth Lies Down Under, about the alternative subcultures Budapest
• Demoscene: The Art of the Algorithms. A 2012 look at "a digital subculture where artists don't use always the latest technology" but "bring out the best from 30 year-old computer technics."
• Journey to the Surface. How the internet and digital technology reshaped the music industry for outside-the-mainstream genres including beatbox, turntablism, DJing, live improvisation, and bedroom producers.
• Longplay — the story of Hungarian video game development behind the Iron Curtain, and how dedicated developers "outfoxed Nintendo, tricked SEGA," and "dodged the limelight and led the world from behind the Iron Curtain."

Thanks to Slashdot reader lameron for sharing the story.

An anonymous reader shares a report: As Hollywood executives insist it is "just not realistic" to pay actors -- 87 percent of whom earn less than $26,000 -- more, they are spending lavishly on AI programs. While entertainment firms like Disney have declined to go into specifics about the nature of their investments in artificial intelligence, job postings and financial disclosures reviewed by The Intercept reveal new details about the extent of these companies' embrace of the technology. In one case, Netflix is offering as much as $900,000 for a single AI product manager.

[...] Netflix's posting for a $900,000-a-year AI product manager job makes clear that the AI goes beyond just the algorithms that determine what shows are recommended to users. The listing points to AI's uses for content creation: "Artificial Intelligence is powering innovation in all areas of the business," including by helping them to "create great content." Netflix's AI product manager posting alludes to a sprawling effort by the business to embrace AI, referring to its "Machine Learning Platform" involving AI specialists "across Netflix."

A research section on Netflix's website describes its machine learning platform, noting that while it was historically used for things like recommendations, it is now being applied to content creation. "Historically, personalization has been the most well-known area, where machine learning powers our recommendation algorithms. We're also using machine learning to help shape our catalog of movies and TV shows by learning characteristics that make content successful. We use it to optimize the production of original movies and TV shows in Netflix's rapidly growing studio."

In its latest attempt to boost revenue and cut losses, Spotify unveiled a widely telegraphed move to raise prices for its premium paying subscriber base. From a report: The new monthly cost for U.S. users will be $10.99, the company said. The hike brings Spotify in line with rivals Apple Music ($10.99 a month) and Amazon Music ($10.99, though cheaper for Prime members), which both raised prices last year. Slightly cheaper: YouTube Music ($9.99 a month), which has steadily built a major presence in the space with more than 80 million-plus combined music and premium subscribers. The price of the Premium Duo plan will go up by $2 to $14.99 per month, while the Family plan and Student plans rise by $1 to $16.99 and $5.99, respectively.

"The market landscape has continued to evolve since we launched. So that we can keep innovating, we are changing our Premium prices across a number of markets around the world," the company said in a statement. "These updates will help us continue to deliver value to fans and artists on our platform." Spotify had 210 million global paying subscribers (a 15 percent increase year-over-year) and 515 million monthly active users as of March 31. Yet the audio giant has been operating at a loss and has been looking for ways to cut costs amid what CFO Paul Vogel called in late April a "very modest underperformance in advertising" revenue in its first quarter of 2023.

Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: The number one movie in North America is Warner Bros. Discovery's Barbie, which Deadline reports has teamed up with Oppenheimer to fuel a mind-blowing $300M+ box office weekend. ["Oppenheimer Shatters Expectations with $80 Million Debut," read the headline at Variety.]

Now it seems everybody is trying to tap into Barbie buzz, including Microsoft's Xbox [which added Barbie and Ken's cars to Forza Horizon 5] and even Microsoft-backed education nonprofit Code.org. ("Are your students excited about Barbie The Movie? Have them try an HourOfCode [programming game] with Barbie herself!").
The idea is to inspire young students to become coders. But as Code.org shares Instagram images of a software developer Barbie, Slashdot reader theodp remembers when, nine years ago, Code.org's CEO "took to Twitter to blast Barbie and urge for her replacement." They'd joined a viral 2014 Computer Engineer Barbie protest that arose in response to the publication of Barbie F***s It Up Again, a scathing and widely reported-on blog post that prompted Mattel to pull the book Barbie: I Can Be a Computer Engineer immediately from Amazon. This may have helped lead to Barbie's loss of her crown as the most popular girls' toy in the ensuing 2014 holiday season to Disney's Frozen princesses Elsa and Anna, and got the Mattel exec who had to apologize for Computer Engineer Barbie called to the White House for a sit down a few months later. (Barbie got a brainy makeover soon thereafter)...

The following year, Disney-owned Lucasfilm and Code.org teamed up on Star Wars: Building a Galaxy with Code, a signature tutorial for the 2015 Hour of Code. Returning to a Disney princess theme in 2016, Disney and Code.org revealed a new Hour of Code tutorial featuring characters from the animated film Moana just a day ahead of its theatrical release. It was later noted that Moana's screenwriters included Pamela Ribon, who penned the 2014 Barbie-blasting blog post that ended Barbie's short reign as the Hour of Code role model of choice for girls.

Interestingly, Ribon seems to bear no Barbie grudges either, tweeting on the day of the Barbie movie release, "I was like holy s*** can't wait to see it."
To be fair, the movie's trailer promises "If you hate Barbie, this movie is for you," in a deconstruction where Barbie is played by D.C. movies' "Harley Quinn" actress Margot Robbie (Suicide Squad, Birds of Prey), whose other roles include Tonya Harding and the home-wrecking second wife in The Wolf of Wall Street.

For a taste of Comic-Con, one San Diego newspaper is sharing photos of the 30 buildings in San Diego that had their exteriors covered this week with promotional "building wraps" for "the latest TV shows, movies and even a National Geographic special."

Some of the stranger announcements this year:

• Jamie Lee Curtis has co-authored a horror graphic novel with an environmentalist theme called Mother Nature.

• It was also announced that season 2 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds would include a musical episode.

• Star Trek: the Next Generation star Jonathan Frakes has directed a Star Trek: Lower Decks episode in which the animated characters crossover into the live-action world of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

And the A.V. Club offers a slideshow with its choices for this year's hottest trailers. Some of the highlights:

• The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live and The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon
• Wheel of Time (Season 2)
• The Marvels (a new movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe)
• Agatha Christie's A Haunting In Venice (starring Kenneth Branagh as Hercule Poirot)
• Anne Rice's Interview With The Vampire (Season 2)
• Harley Quinn (Season 4)

Something unexpected happened at this year's Comic-Con, reports Entertainment Weekly: As film and TV actors skipped San Diego Comic-Con in support of the SAG-AFTRA strike, a number of voice actors gathered to show their support — and raise awareness about the threat of artificial intelligence on their industry.

The National Association of Voice Actors hosted a panel Saturday morning, where multiple actors and SAG officials spoke to a packed room about how rapidly changing AI technology can threaten both fans and creators... The panelists took a deep dive into the many different forms of AI, particularly in its use in voice work — from original voices like Apple's Siri to synthetic voices copying live actors. All cautioned that AI inherently is not a bad tool and can in some ways enhance voice performances, but fans and actors should push back against exploitative methods.

"Voice acting is the tip of the spear of how AI can either be used to lift people up and enhance the opportunities that actors have — or be used in a negative way to steal their voices and crush human creativity," SAG-AFTRA executive director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland told the crowd. "We need to be very vigilant about that. AI isn't implementing itself. People are choosing to implement AI. So, we've got to reject the idea that this is something that is going to happen to us, and there's nothing to be done about that. That is an absolute myth that is being foisted upon us by the people who want us to think we have no power."

Ultimately, the panelists explained, it all comes down to consent. Currently, there are no federal or international laws protecting a person's likeness, and many existing contracts allow a company to capture an actor's voice or likeness and use it "in perpetuity." NAVA and SAG-AFTRA are calling upon voice actors and fans alike to push back, both by establishing protective contract language and by pushing for global laws.
In addition, the site also reports that "Actors, cosplayers, and a congressman hit the streets of San Diego during Comic-Con 2023 on Friday to show their support for the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike."

Ahead of the Oppenheimer release, IMAX's TikTok showed the massive 70mm film print and special IMAX extensions. The video interestingly featured an emulated Palm m130, commonly known as a Palm Pilot, a 2002 device running on a Motorola 33MHz DragonBall VZ processor and Palm OS 4.1. From a report: In an IMAX theater, the m130's job is to control the quick turn reel unit, or QTRU for short. (For many years, it appears, a non-emulated m130 sat holstered in most theaters.) The QTRU's job is to control the platters, which are those large horizontal shelves where all of a film's many reels are stitched together, stored, and then quickly spun out to and from the projector. The IMAX 1570 projector moves film at a little under six feet per second, so it's all happening really fast.

The m130 is apparently crucial to keeping the thing humming -- "PALM PILOT MUST BE ON ALL THE TIME," reads a notice above an image of a different m130 that has since been passed around the internet -- but doesn't often need to be used. "I've never had to interact with the Palm Pilot," says one person familiar with the technology. "It's really just a status screen." Its job is to keep the QTRU moving at a consistent speed and to help keep the film's video in sync with its audio.

Netflix is bringing password-sharing crackdown to consumers in India and every other market starting today, the global streaming giant said after a limited rollout of the restriction helped the firm sign up nearly 6 million subscribers in the quarter ending June. From a report: The streaming giant said it will start to address account sharing between households in almost all of its remaining countries starting Thursday. Netflix, which once supported the practice of account password-sharing, now finds it posing complex challenges to its business prospects.

It began testing the restriction last year, much to many subscribers' chagrin, and expanded it to a number of other countries including Canada, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain and the U.S. in 2023. In some aforementioned markets, Netflix allowed those sharing the password to pay extra to accommodate their friends.