Fair-Use Download Policy

Why there is a limit at all

Every membership carries a daily download allowance. The number for your plan is shown on the pricing page and on your account dashboard, and a plan described as Unlimited has no daily cap at all.

The allowance exists for one reason: to stop a single account being used to mirror the whole catalogue. It is not a rationing device aimed at ordinary use. If you are building sites, a normal working day does not come close to the limit.

What counts as normal use

• Downloading products you intend to install on sites you build or maintain.
• Re-downloading a product you already took, because a release was updated or you lost the file.
• Downloading on behalf of a client, for a site you are delivering to them.

None of that is restricted, and none of it needs our permission.

What counts as misuse

• Bulk mirroring. Scripted or sequential downloading of large parts of the catalogue, whether or not you stay inside a daily number.
• Account sharing. One membership used by several people, or credentials passed around a team, an agency or a forum.
• Resale of access. Reselling your account, your licence key, or the files as a competing subscription service. The GPL lets you redistribute the software; it does not let you resell our service, our update infrastructure or our brand.
• Automation against the site. Crawlers, headless browsers or download managers pointed at the catalogue. The updater API exists for machine access; use it.

What happens if you hit your daily limit

Your next download is refused with a message telling you the limit and the time it resets. Nothing else happens: your membership is not suspended, no strike is recorded, and the allowance resets on a rolling 24-hour basis rather than at midnight in a timezone you do not live in.

What happens if we think you are mirroring

We look at the account before we touch it, and a human makes the decision. If we restrict an account we tell you why, and we tell you at the same time as we do it — not afterwards. You can reply and we will read it. If we got it wrong we will restore the account and extend it by the time you lost.

We do not confiscate files you have already downloaded, and we do not use this policy to cut short a refund you are entitled to under our refund policy.

The GPL is not affected by any of this

Files you have already downloaded remain yours under the GNU General Public Licence, including the right to redistribute them. This policy governs access to our service — the hosting, the scanning, the updates and the support — which is what you are actually paying for. See the GPL licence notice for the full explanation.

Questions

If you have a genuine case that looks unusual — a large migration, an agency onboarding, a one-off bulk rebuild — ask us first. We would far rather agree it with you in advance than interrupt work you have already started.