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Token Conservation and Reclamation

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tdfrgsn said:
So downloading 140 episodes of Futurama is fair use but downloading 706 episodes of The Simpsons is piracy? I'm really interested to know where the cut off is because the 259 episodes of King Of The Hill seem to be in a gray area.
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I keep coming back to this buffet analogy. Walking out of an all-you-can-eat restaurant holding a few cookies to eat later is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Driving in with your pickup truck, stuffing it full of as much food as possible, and rolling away is just stealing.

Where is the line? I don't know exactly, but it's definitely below "the amount of food (movies) that I am physically capable of eating (watching) in a day."
 
Wowfunhappy said:
I keep coming back to this buffet analogy. Walking out of an all-you-can-eat restaurant holding a few cookies to eat later is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Driving in with your pickup truck, stuffing it full of as much food as possible, and rolling away is just stealing.

Where is the line? I don't know exactly, but it's definitely below "the amount of food (movies) that I am physically capable of eating (watching) in a day."
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Unless the buffet has a policy stating that you are able to take food home with you, you are still committing theft regardless of whether it's a handful or a truck full of cookies. If I go to a store it doesn't matter whether I put a candy bar or a diamond necklace in my pocket, I am still stealing from the store. If I am driving on the highway and I go over the speed limit it doesn't matter whether it was 1 mile or 50 miles, it was still speeding. The severity of the punishment may change depending on what I stole or how fast I was going but it's still breaking the law. It sounds a lot more like you've made up some arbitrary limit in your mind to justify to yourself why what you are doing isn't wrong.
 
tdfrgsn said:
Unless the buffet has a policy stating that you are able to take food home with you, you are still committing theft regardless of whether it's a handful or a truck full of cookies. [...] It sounds a lot more like you've made up some arbitrary limit in your mind to justify to yourself why what you are doing isn't wrong.
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I mean, I've been to buffet breakfasts that literally had bagels packaged in nice little to-go containers. But, okay, if you think using AnyStream is wrong, feel free to stop using it. *shrug*.

I use AnyStream because I despise the experience of watching content on most streaming services. Autoplay is a terrible dark pattern; the integrated episode summaries are spoilery and have ruined a lot of content for me; episodes will randomly stop to buffer or drop the video quality to pixel-art levels (but somehow AnyStream can download 4K at faster than real time on the same internet connection); certain providers will outright refuse to play on my hardware due to overly-restrictive DRM policies; etc.

With AnyStream, I can bypass all of this, and watch pre-downloaded videos on my preferred hardware and player. I've actually subscribed to several new streaming services over the past few months, because AnyStream allows me to watch their content without pulling my hair out!

But I only ever download the videos which I would be watching online anyway. If you're actually watching the content you download, it's just about physically impossible to run out of tokens. And if you're not watching the content... that's when I think you're going too far!
 
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Wowfunhappy said:
What I don't do is download videos that I don't intend to watch within the next few days. Which means I have never needed to worry about tokens. Because, again, if you're actually watching the content you download, it's just about physically impossible to run out.
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I do the exact same thing because that gives me an incentive to watch it again, and then delete it from my Hard drive. This way I never run out of room and don't have to spend 100 bucks on more storage. That's also the reason I rather use 720P than 1080P, it uses much less space. The movie looks the same to me, I do not have a 10,000 TV, I use Chromecast to watch from the computer to my tv and watch what I want when I want, and then delete it. I mean if you know the ending of a movie, and you have seen it twice, there is no incentive to ever see it again.
 
Wowfunhappy said:
And if you're not watching the content... that's when I think you're going too far!
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first, whats it to you anyways? second, what i dont want to watch today doesnt neccessarily mean i will not want to watch tomorrow or in a year. my prerogative, after all. third, things that are available to download via AS today, doesnt mean it wont be pulled from the provider (potentially forever) tomorrow.

that being said, i dont like tokens, in fact i think theyre slightly moronic, but i understand why theyre there and although i hate it when i hit the limit (happened three or four times since ive acquired a license, so like maybe 6 months altogether?), i still think 280 per week is an ok-ish amount. on the other hand, buying an expensive piece of nonprofessional-use software and having limits pushed upon you, a customer, is still a very compelling argument against token system. but then again, if we had 10000 downloads per week (i know you are out there, lol) it is possible that providers might suspect something. so, all in all... the current system imo is ok-ish. although, it would be nice to put an upgraded system of some sorts in place when well have 10 or more providers in AS. anyways, cheers!
 
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My plan is to purchase multiple licenses if necessary. Anystream is in my opinion cheap compared to the competition and offers much better video and audio quality. Most other competitor's products force you to re-encode/remux the video. I like the fact I get the raw video and audio with no changes via Anystream. If you want to download more pay for another license. It's cheaper than buying all those shows and movies individually. And you have to have storage space for all that content. If you can afford all that you can afford a second/third/fourth license if necessary to get to your particular use case.
 
There are 24 hours in a day, sleep for 8, work for 8, leaving a max of 8 hours for leisure.

Someone please tell me where you find the time to watch all these downloads.

I think the current token allocation is OK.
 
Wowfunhappy said:
You'd need to install them on separate computers though. (Or partitions/VMs I guess.)

It'll work, but it's quite clearly (and rightly) not the point of the token system.
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Like I said before, what if 3 college roommates are sharing a house, it happens all the time and they all want their own license on their own computer. I mean we are not in North Korea here, the same issue if all the college guys bought 1 car, but they all had a date on Friday. What to do about that. Everyone gets their own car.
 
RedFox 1 said:
Like I said before, what if 3 college roommates are sharing a house, it happens all the time and they all want their own license on their own computer. I mean we are not in North Korea here, the same issue if all the college guys bought 1 car, but they all had a date on Friday. What to do about that. Everyone gets their own car.
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I'm not suggesting that tokens should be per-IP address. I'm just a little afraid of the narrative that that the solution to running out of tokens is to buy additional licenses. That makes the token system seem like some kind of RedFox cash grab, and it's not, it's an "acceptable use policy"!

Hence why this "solution" requires multiple computers. (Or VM's, OS partitions, etc.)
 
Wowfunhappy said:
I'm not suggesting that tokens should be per-IP address. I'm just a little afraid of the narrative that that the solution to running out of tokens is to buy additional licenses. That makes the token system seem like some kind of RedFox cash grab, and it's not, it's an "acceptable use policy"!

Hence why this "solution" requires multiple computers. (Or VM's, OS partitions, etc.)
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Absolutely different IPs, but doesn't having a VPN negate all of that? Just saying, I agree with you. But how to be fair about it.
 
Yeah, same IP is a bad idea. If multiple users connect to the same VPN ip for example. Although entirely different users, they'd be bound by the same bucket if it were to be linked to an IP.
 
RedFox 1 said:
Absolutely different IPs, but doesn't having a VPN negate all of that? Just saying, I agree with you. But how to be fair about it.
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I don't think the way tokens are counted should be changed at all. I just wouldn't encourage buying multiple licenses as a "solution" to running out of tokens, as another poster did. It might work but it will be a pain, on purpose.
 
Wowfunhappy said:
I don't think the way tokens are counted should be changed at all. I just wouldn't encourage buying multiple licenses as a "solution" to running out of tokens, as another poster did. It might work but it will be a pain, on purpose.
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I agree with you Wowfunhappy. 100%.
 
RedFox 1 said:
I agree with you Wowfunhappy. 100%.
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I would also use this analogy to buying multiple licenses. Only so much productivity can come out of a single computer. Hence you must license Windows on each computer. I am not suggesting that I personally buy multiple licenses. But if my problem was the token limit I would increase my available tokens by buying a second license, you would in essence be abiding by the fair use policy on each license.
 
Paul W. H said:
There are 24 hours in a day, sleep for 8, work for 8, leaving a max of 8 hours for leisure.

Someone please tell me where you find the time to watch all these downloads.

I think the current token allocation is OK.
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My wife enjoys different content than I do, as does our two children. To each his own.
 
Paul W. H said:
There are 24 hours in a day, sleep for 8, work for 8, leaving a max of 8 hours for leisure.

Someone please tell me where you find the time to watch all these downloads.

I think the current token allocation is OK.
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You forgot being on the forum for 12 hours also.:whistle:
 
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