Netflix accidentally lets you download movies for free. I reported this on March 18th, but they still haven’t replied. It’s been 2 weeks, so I’m posting the details now.
While digging through Netflix’s javascript I found a function named “startDownload“. I was originally just curious about the AJAX responsible for the movie info popup boxes, but this proved much more interesting.
I’m guessing they must be beta-testing this for some accounts because nothing visible through my account ever calls “startDownload“, but I could still use it.
Turns out the function handles a bitrate selection, and then just rewrites the URL a little. You can get the same affect by just adding “&download=avi&br=4” to the end of a movie info URL. For example, this is the URL to get info about Ice Age, and this is the URL to download Ice Age. This even seems to work without being logged in.
I haven’t had time to check if everything in their library is downloadable, but of the 6 or so I tried, they all worked. If anyone finds a cut-off date, let me know.
© 2006, Kees Cook. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License.
hardy harharhar
Comment by hahah — April 1, 2006 @ 7:23 pm
dude. you guys are the april fool masters. I tip my hat to you AGAIN.
Comment by techne — April 1, 2006 @ 9:55 pm