Exciting news for who? Only the site owner is excited that a free resource now requires a subscription
"Yay! Now I have to pay another subscription! I'm so excited! Let's celebrate with them!" - nobody
I have no skin in this game but I think it sounds like they need to change their name from "open subtitles" to "closed captioning"
Edit: stupid STT
Eyyyyyy got em
Gather all the worlds subtitles under the guise of being “open” and then bait and switch when you’re the largest subtitles database out there.
The free API had a limit of 20 subs/day, you’re not going to tell me those server costs were significant.
The new API has the exact same free limit. They're just dropping support for the old API soon and people who want to depend on the old version will need to pay for its continued support because they want to push everyone onto the new site/API
then they utterly failed to communicate that lol
It doesn’t say the new API costs money, though. It just says the old API requires VIP for people that can’t switch to the new API…
Yea OP should update the post. OS did a horrible job communicating but its not as dire as the title projects.
I think it goes from 20 to 5. 10 if you're not anonymous. To get more you need to have contributed to the site, monetarily or other wise.
And yeah sure, server costs and all. OTOH, subtitle files are tiny, so there's only so much money you can ask for it realistically.
Why is it called "OpenSubtitles" if you have to pay for it to use it in any capacity?
Probably because anyone can contribute to it. But you have to pay to use them.
Kinda like another website that recently made this change...
Monetizing the goodwill efforts of passionate people is so gross.
Why we need comuity run sites again lemmy is just the start
It’s “Open” in the same way that OpenAI is “Open”.
“Open” ≠ “Open Source” or “Open Access”. It’s more like: “Open for Business”.
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.
I think it's reasonable move. They have Legacy API that cost them a lot of manhours to maitain and they decided to cut on costs and replace it with a new thing. Sadly they decresed amount of api calls from 20 to 5 [needs citation]
I think they don't have good PR guy to better communicate the change
Subtitles are like 5kb text files, why even limit their downloads in any way?
The overhead isn't the storage but the request. Processing a request takes CPU time, which can get expensive when people setup a media server and request subtitles for dozens of movies and shows. Every episode of a TV show is a separate request and that can add up fast when you scale it to thousands of users.
well it has been deprecated for a few years, and they're basically asking you to play for continued support.
they have a new REST api, but you still need the old one, pay up because otherwise there's no motivation to keep it around.
So what pisses me off in these cases is this: they didn't contribute with the data. They're a convenient aggregator, I give them that, but the data came from third parties. If you want to start charging for convenient access to the data you should at least make all data before you started charging available in a bulk download for free.
You just need to move to the new API, which is free, the old one is still available temporarily if you pay
contribute to a greater cause
For the greater good, that is their pockets.
I am your wife! I am the greatest good you are ever gonna get!
HOLY SHIT! 12 whole dollars a YEAR to keep using the deprecated API they don't want to support anymore. What monsters.
Lol gotta pay for "adfree subtitles"
lol I got that emaik and read that exactly the same.
Someone should hire that author for a large corporation's pr department
What really caught my attention was OpenSubtitles going from a .org to a .com domain.
You should tip them too!
Like your landlord
I had issues in the past with opensubtitles serving malware through fake download buttons on the site.
You had like 6 different buttons to download with only one legit.
Sent them an email and they removed them...
I hardly trust this site and really don't appreciate they use open in their name and pull up shit like this.
I wish we had some sort of P2P sub hosting... So we don't have to deal with sites like opensubtitles.
Image Transcription: Email
OpenSubtitles
Dear Redacted,
Exciting news! OpenSubtitles.org is undergoing a transformation, retiring the original API by the end of 2023. Fear not, as this paves the way for the advanced OpenSubtitles.com REST API. We also understand, in some scenarios there is no way to use new API yet, so original API will be avaliable from New Year only for VIP Users.
Change is Good: Introducing the 20% Black Friday Treat!
Celebrate with us! Enjoy a 20% discount on a one-year VIP subscription until November 24th, 2023, so you can use original API. Elevate your VIP experience on both www.opensubtitles.org and www.opensubtitles.com. Instead of 15 USD per year you can get this deal for 12 USD.
VIP Advantage: Unlock Exclusive Benefits
Seize this limited-time offer and become a VIP member today. Enhance your subtitle experience - ad-free, seamless, and with higher download limit access.
Site owner and whomever in marketing wrote that. Pure psychopathy, IMO.
A proper REST API sounds like exciting news to me, and I’m sure anyone who needs to interact with their APIs..
Will the new API be free?
No idea, not using the website via API
I'm not irritated by the switch but by the phrasing. You can't start an email like this with "exciting news"
Sorry my dude, you are stoking outrage over something you do not use and apparently do not understand. Look at some of the posts that explain it does not mean the whole page is now for profit, it is not.
Anger is a form of excitement.
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