Making a burner account isnt that hard and hardly a shittification in my books.
Just a measure to ensure the free api access is correctly monetized which is a valid reason for a service to me.
Would you work for free for your workplace without a compensation beyond a $5 bill and a pat on the back at times because your boss felt generous?
Would you work for free for your workplace without a compensation beyond a $5 bill and a pat on the back at times because your boss felt generous?
Misleading question. These kinds of communities are volunteer-fed, so you are basically asking me if I would work for free for a charity, which is the point. Things change notoriously when the boss then decides to monetize the entire thing for themself and not for you.
But we come a bit full circle here:
OpenSubs pays for the server and availability and service speed.
I assume the speed they provide ain’t the cheapest server they could get their hands on.
If the cost of a free/unauthenticated users and the server bill breaks even with the VIP payment (cant call it a donation imo) then they should have all the rights to limit free users.
Now if they actively lock features, then I have no feelings for them.
Every service that disabled or limited the API has seen an increase in running costs, because people turn to scraping, which costs them more resources overall, and cannot be controlled by the site owners as easily.
Let's be honest, though, hosting text files with a search bar isn't that much expensive to justify a response like this.
It's fine if they want to earn money, but then they should be upfront about it, and not making up stories about fluke running costs. I'd rather see a donation button.
But I feel like business decision in these times are rarely backed by good reasoning beyond quick cash and seldom long term thinking. So good job OpenSubs? Yay?
Jesus, reading comprehension is hard to come by eh? How have so many people struggled to actually read this?
They aren’t requiring payment, nor are they requiring you to sign in or create an account.
They are transitioning from an old API to a new one. The new API (and the site itself) is ad supported and rate limited; 5 downloads per day unauthenticated, double that for a free account, or ‘VIP’ accounts have higher limits and no ads.
It’s not authenticated access only, nor is it paid access only.
It doesn’t say any of that information about non-VIP accounts, go read it yourself, and the information you quoted about anonymous accounts is also wrong.
edit: I won’t be receiving any replies from this commenter. If anyone wants to say I’m wrong, feel free to provide a screenshot from the blogpost proving it.
Your consumer can query the API on its own, and download 5 subtitles per IP’s per 24 hours, but a user must be authenticated to download more. Users will then be able to download as many subtitles as their ranks allows, from 10 as simple signed up user, to 1000 for VIP user.
Though that’s not fully ‘unauthenticated’, as the above is discussing the use of a developer API key. Though that would be built into whatever app is being used.
Except the screencap I provided shows different information, and as you say it’s not in the OP, so there’s still no reason for that guy being a jackass about others being confused about the situation.
There’s six big ass bold numbered paragraphs detailing the differences between the ‘VIP’ (paid) users and ‘non-VIP’ (free) users.
There’s also a link to the REST API docs where the first thing it details is exactly how authentication is handled. Specifically: an application looking to interface with opensubtitles will have an api key embedded by its developer and without logging in further will have 5 free downloads/day, that can then be expanded by the end user logging in with their (free or VIP) account.
That documentation lists anonymous accounts (not signed in as a specific user) as rated limited to 5/day. That doubles to 10 for signed in (but still free) users and grows further with VIP.
To an extent, but it’s only really relevant to developers. End users don’t see or interact with this at all and aren’t required to provide further info.
For 99% of people, this change makes very little, if any, difference. The way it’s been worded makes it seem like no one gets to use opensubtitles anymore unless they start shelling out cash.
Not really, no. Those keys are more or less equivalent to a browser’s user agent, difference is you don’t choose your own but get them from OpenSubtitles. Motivation probably ranges from “that makes it easy to reject random crawlers” to “we’d like to know the people writing software against our API, or at least have a way to contact them”.
You’ll also be able to find examples of such keys in repositories in the future in case you don’t want to request one of your own but frankly speaking that’s a dick move.
Also, I’ve read through the post several times, and it doesn’t mention anonymous quotas or anything like that. It’s just one long promo for what VIP accounts get over regular accounts.
Further, your quoted quotas are wrong, as the screenshot I provided shows 10 per day for anonymous accounts.
If you’re going to shame people for reading comprehension, you should probably read the details yourself a bit closer.
I can only conclude that everyone upvoting you didn’t bother to read the post either.
Yes, I know this already, and the API docs provide different info than the screencap from opensubtitles.com (which the blogpost is about transferring accounts to from opensubtitles.org), so being a douche about anyone not being clear on things from reading any of that, much less reading just the blogpost, was uncalled for.
I didn’t see anything about it being free. I also didn’t pick up on whether or not it was moving behind a paywall, just that you could buy a vip subscription for 20% off
I think in the email they sent out they mentioned that each IP would be able to download 5 per 24 hours and “registered users” 10 per 24 hours. Paid members would be restricted to 1,000 per 24 hours.
It’s 15 bucks a year for VIP, if I understood it correctly, then I am of the opinion there is nothing here to get mad about for “regular users”.
Your consumer can query the API on its own, and download 5 subtitles per IP’s per 24 hours, but a user must be authenticated to download more. Users will then be able to download as many subtitles as their ranks allows, from 10 as simple signed up user, to 1000 for VIP user.
man, they’ve change so much since 2017, where they were giving VIP membership out for free as a Christmas gift. Now they’re making it so can’t access the API for free anymore as a Christmas gift to themselves lmao
Now they’re making it so can’t access the API for free anymore
No, they’re not.
They are switching from the old API to the new API. You can pay to continue using the old one, use the new one for free (max 5 downloads per day), or pay for less-restricted access to the new API.
I can view opensubtitles.org click on a random title, click download, and a .zip containing an .nfo and .srt downloads no issue.
Presumably that’s the old method; there’s also a ‘download (beta)’ button. It puts up a 20sec timer, then lets me click download and lists how much of my quota (1 of 10, not signed in) I’ve used.
Supposed to remain free, just rate limited to 10/day.
Sure. When I go to “opensubtitles.org” I get redirected to the login page. Here’s the screenshot: imgur.com/a/bhGTeC1
Edit: After I login, it works as you described, by the way. It’s not really a big deal; I was just surprised that it started happening since I hadn’t seen any mention of that change anywhere. I’m even more surprised that it isn’t happening to everyone.
Title is a bit misleading. Starting with 2024 the site will be moving to a new API. The payment is too be able to continue to use the old API a while longer (for software that can’t be changed yet).
Additionally, it’s just a limit on how much you can download. You can still get 10 subtitles a day for free.
Your consumer can query the API on its own, and download 5 subtitles per IP’s per 24 hours, but a user must be authenticated to download more. Users will then be able to download as many subtitles as their ranks allows, from 10 as simple signed up user, to 1000 for VIP user.
If you’re looking for an alternative, I’ve had luck with subscene.com
I don’t really know what the best or most popular website is because this one has never really led me astray. That said, I don’t need to use them too often, so your mileage may vary.
Am I the only one for whom "open"subtitles.org hasn’t worked in years? I literally cannot find the download button, like in those okboomer memes. Never used the API. Switched to subscene.com and haven’t had problems since.
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