Don’t fret -- you’ll still be able to watch “Veep” using your ex-boyfriend’s uncle’s HBO Go account, at least for now.
Richard Plepler, the CEO of HBO, told CNN’s Brian Stelter that the company looks at password sharing “very carefully,” but at the moment, the number of people sharing passwords on HBO Go is “just simply not a big number.”
“Should it become a big number, we will deal with it,” he told Stelter in the interview (above). “We will change the number of concurrent streams that are available. But right now the number really isn’t significant as long as it remains de minimis.”
(HBO and CNN are both part of Time Warner.)
As you may be aware, some people use others’ account information to use HBO Go, the streaming platform that’s available only to people who subscribe to HBO through a television provider.
Some streaming services are meant to be used by multiple people in a household, so that’s why HBO and Netflix both allow multiple people to watch different shows or movies at the same time. HBO Go can be streamed by three people simultaneously, while Netflix has membership plans that range from one to four simultaneous streams.
Home to hits like “Game of Thrones” and “Girls,” HBO is taking a similar approach to password sharing on HBO Now, the company's new standalone service that launched Tuesday. Three concurrent streams are OK -- for the time being.
The number of videos that you and members of your household can play at the same time with HBO Now is similar to HBO GO. Like the traditional broadcast HBO subscription, we view it as a household subscription. However, if we see a level of sharing that affects our business, there are other tools of enforcement available to us.
HBO Now, which costs $14.99 a month, is meant to appeal to the growing number of people who don’t subscribe to TV. At launch, one can sign up for the new service through Apple -- either via an Apple TV or an app on an iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch -- or through Cablevision, if the subscriber lives in an area served by the cable provider. Once the person signs up, he can watch via his Mac or PC at HBONow.com.