Bilibili paywall for guests

[RedSquirrel87]

Original report by Anonymous.

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Hello. Bilibili international (www_bilibilicomics_com) provided paywall mechanism for users. From given chapter of given title reader must wait some interval to read next chapter. The intervals differ and are divided on 5 tiers, last tier is 24h. Users that are not logged in, can't lift the paywall and can only read 2 pages of given chapter. So manga downloader can't download more than mentioned 2 pages. I thought (which may not be a surefire way) to use data provided from manga downloader extension for browser, the one to bypass cloudflare, but for bilibili there is no way to paste these data.
Is there any way to make manga downloader be able to download from bilibili chapters accessible for not guests but authorized users?

[RedSquirrel87]

Original comment by Red Squirrel (Bitbucket: Red_Squirrel, GitHub: RedSquirrel87).

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Thank you for reporting the issue, I’ll see to fix this in next version 👍

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[RedSquirrel87]

Original comment by Ryszard Adamus (Bitbucket: [Ryszard Adamus](https://bitbucket.org/Ryszard Adamus), ).

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You can check chapter “Scream Queen” title: https://www.bilibilicomics.com/mc45/201666?from=manga_detail

First tier is always 0 seconds. Tiers resets after few days. I tried to bypass it with some primitive python bilibili downloader but whatever cookies I provided it was not enough to bypass the protection.

[RedSquirrel87]

Original comment by Red Squirrel (Bitbucket: Red_Squirrel, GitHub: RedSquirrel87).

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Sorry, I may have misunderstood the issue, I thought that the website added just an access limitation for not-logged users. But if they added a "pay for view" mechanics then Manga Downloader will not allow you to bypass it, neither now nor in the future. This is a "life choice" I made from the first day for this program (I mean not allowing to backup, and consequently maybe share, paid contents) to avoid any legal issue since this kind of programs (and all the scanlations thing in general) are already in a very fragile gray area regarding legality for free contents, so better not to attract more unwanted attention dealing with paid contents 😅

[RedSquirrel87]

Original comment by Red Squirrel (Bitbucket: Red_Squirrel, GitHub: RedSquirrel87).

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Let's say that I’ll interpret this issue as a request to implement an option to use cookies even for websites not protected by Cloudflare 😉

[RedSquirrel87]

Original comment by Ryszard Adamus (Bitbucket: [Ryszard Adamus](https://bitbucket.org/Ryszard Adamus), ).

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The content is protected by something similar to fast pass in webtoon. You can wait or You can use money and get access faster. When Your wait time is over You will get access for free without any other limitations. Contrary, in webtoon, You have to wait one week to unlock next episode, and bilibili made it slighty different: they divided the wait time to 5 tiers. First tier is only to show that title is protected and wait time is 0, second tier is 6 minutes of wait, last tier is 24h. Then cycle repeats. In naver webtoon fast pass unlocks automatically, where in bilibili user is asked to click button on www to read the episode when wait time is over. Once unlocked episodes stay unlocked. Maybe in the future there will be full paywall without the possibility of reading with Your time only but for now this is how it is. If You have time You can check the link I have provided. Till 86 episode of Scream Queen the access is not limited by anything. It is similar for other series. So i am not asking to add feature to get content which is only available by money.

I suggested cookies method because the intention is to unlock episodes using real browser and real account (using time or money), and download them using app with proper credentials, not to bypass the mechanism. But i am not sure if it is possible, i tried use it with python and i failed, but i am practically newbe in python and it would be ridiculous for bilibili if I would success.
About possible legal issues You mentioned - bilibili is official publisher of titles they have and due to their terms any content is copyrighted, the free one as well. So with such controversies this site should be removed from downloader (not that i suggesting anything).

[RedSquirrel87]

Original comment by Red Squirrel (Bitbucket: Red_Squirrel, GitHub: RedSquirrel87).

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So I misunderstood it again, oh well as soon as I have some time I will check the website better, how it works and what we can do about this issue 👍

[RedSquirrel87]

Original comment by Ryszard Adamus (Bitbucket: [Ryszard Adamus](https://bitbucket.org/Ryszard Adamus), ).

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Well, bilibili shut the “promotional” (which i took as granted approach to readers before) access down and now time wall has been extended to all chapters except few first. And time tiers has been extended in time as well, although the longest tier is still 24h. Not sure the time wait unlock is permanent or not because there is even no info that chapters has been put behind time wall, they will probably add some padlock icon or something in future. Even these ones i already read few months ago i have time wall on them now.
If You still try to add feature i requested (if it is even possible that it will work) i can also give a hint, that images can be downloaded with quality settings. For example image link can be ended with @100q.jpg which gives jpeg with quality 100 (webpage provide jpegs with quality 75 normally), or You can request image with maximum width or maximum height with @700w.jpg and @1080h.jpg. Although i didn’t find the method to use all switches in the same request. Format of images can also be selected.

EDIT: exactly they changed things at 1 august. I didn’t care for bilibili for at least for month and didn’t notice the system message …