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.

[–] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 11 months ago (2 children)

You realize the developer key is still authentication, hmmm?

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 5 points 11 months ago

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.

[–] Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 11 months ago

I was very careful to not say it needs payment