Hi all,
I think it’s a great feature in plex that you can sync media to mobile devices for offline use. And obviously, it is possible for anyone with access to your plex server to do so.
This is perfect for use on mobile devices, but playback on a TV requires a streaming connection to the server holding the original media. With all pros and cons that are related to this.
Now, here’s my question:
Wouldn’t it be a great feature, if it would be possible to sync media between two plex servers, as it is possible with mobile devices? Then it wouldn’t be necessary to have a streaming connection to the server holding the original media. You could sync the media in the desired quality to a more “local” plex server and stream to the TV from this server, without the need to stream it from the originating “remote” server directly.
That wouldn’t create any problem, as it’s not different to a sync to a mobile device (the synced copy is linked to the original server as on any mobile device).
It would however reduce the impact on the network and on the primary plex server, as the media can be transfered asynchronous and must not be stremed directly.
As a bonus, it would be a reason for anyone wanting to use this feature to buy a license for their own plex server. And it would ease the way, you could share your content with a friend.
What do you think?
This sounds like copyright infringement on a massive scale.
And linking that to Plex Pass sales is making Plex Inc. profiting from it. Which then brings it into a tenuous legal position.
This kind of use is no longer “fair use”. As such, it will never happen.
Comapre the Plex Terms & Conditions. They say Plex is for sharing your media with family and close friends. The above proposition would make this no longer true.
I do see the argument.
And it might (or might not) be legally valid, as in my eyes this is as well dependant on local laws.
However, I don’t see the principal difference to a setup, where you use a Windows PC with the plex app installed as media player attached to the TV. You can still sync to this device and play it from there.
Why would one setup be considered a problem while the other is not? It can’t possibly be the method of transmisson (HDMI vs. data stream to a player).
But then again, it was just an idea…
Come on, moderator. Up to 100 close friends and family? But with the limitation of they must stream from one server because of the associated risk? You can I both know people are selling the other 99 seats for a monthly fee to their private Plex server. Please like Netflix and Disney Plus limit it to 4 simultaneous streams per account.
What the poster here is talking about is a cluster of servers, some geographically dispersed as offload servers (ISP’s do that) so that they can avoid streaming issues. Correctly done, it would make sense. I’m using a 5 year-old NUC and I can barely run two streams in my house, let alone over the internet. Plus, I put a lot of work into setting up my library and art, and the backup/restore is not elegant, is it? Mirrored servers, whether on-prem or not, would be a huge feature. Just tie it to the same account and limit the streams. Or better yet, to alleviate your valid legal concerns, have 100 users divided by the number of servers, and then limit the streams per server. Have 5 servers for all your close friends? Then only 20 users can connect per server under the same account.
You see, it just takes a little effort.
