Originally Posted by dobry_den

7gb isn't much content, so even a restrictive rate-limit can only stretch it out for a few days.

- At a 200 kb/s limit, a 7gb download takes 9.7 hours
- At 100 kb/s, it takes 19.5 hours.
- At 50 kb/s, it takes 38.9 hours
- At 25 kb/s, it takes 77.8 hours

But all of these are much slower than the 480 kb/s he was able to download at.

There are always going to be people like this, and there aren't many ways to stop them without killing the experience for your higher value customers.

I wouldn't go below 100-200 kb/s.

And if users are expected to stream the content from your site, then you can't go lower than the bitrate it takes to stream the video! Else you'll force users to buffer content while they're trying to enjoy it which just kills boners and experiences alike.

There are more clever solutions, but they depend on how your site works and some details about your stack.