Downloads — limits & expiry

When you buy digital files, the store may set a limit on how many times each file can be downloaded and a date when access ends. This page explains how those work — and how a store owner can help if something goes wrong.

What counts as a download

Tapping Download first creates a short-lived, single-use activation handoff; that alone does not consume the meter. Once activated, the same browser can continue an interrupted transfer for up to 24 hours. Sellerlane keeps a high-water mark and allows only an open-ended continuation, with a small bounded rewind to account for proxy/browser buffering. A clean interruption is paused without consuming the meter while that continuation window stays open; normally one download is counted when the private stream reaches the end. If a started transfer is abandoned until the window expires, Sellerlane finalizes it exactly once so repeatedly stopping just before the end cannot bypass the limit. The activation cannot be replayed to start a second logical transfer.

If the streaming server itself crashes after bytes have started and cannot durably record whether the response completed, the outcome is genuinely unknowable. The same fail-closed expiry rule covers that session, so a crash cannot become a way to bypass a seller’s limit. An activation that never opens the file still expires without being counted.

Each purchased file has its own meter. A successful stream increments that file and the grant’s aggregate usage count; using one file never consumes another file’s allowance. The order page shows the grant total plus the used/limit state for each file, along with an “Access expires” date and time. It always shows the real date, never a vague “expires in N days.”

For example

You buy a wallpaper pack containing three files with a 5-download limit. You download the desktop file to your laptop, then again to your phone—that file is 2 used, 3 remaining, while the other two files still have 5 each. If the first stream is interrupted, the same browser can continue it without consuming a second allowance. If its 24-hour continuation window has ended, return to the order page and request a fresh download, subject to the remaining allowance.

When the expiry clock starts

Your access window starts when the file is ready for you, not the instant you paid. On the normal flow that’s when your payment clears. If the store fulfils the order by hand later, the clock doesn’t start ticking while you still can’t download anything. Once it starts, the expiry date is fixed and won’t drift.

Limits are per file and purchase, not per quantity

One purchase creates one grant, with an independent allowance for every file in that grant. Buying quantity 3 of a product does not multiply those allowances: each file with a 5-download limit still has 5, not 15. Sending files to several different people as gifts is handled separately, and each recipient gets their own access.

Caution

“No limit set” means unlimited, and “no expiry set” means never expires. A limit of zero is never allowed, because it’s unclear whether it means “no downloads at all” or “unlimited” — so stores can’t set it.

Security and your emails

• Download activation handoffs are single-use and expire in about 90 seconds. After activation, continuation is bound to a necessary, host-only browser cookie and the exact file version for up to 24 hours. Copying only the URL to another browser cannot continue the stream.
• Emails never contain a live file link. A fulfilment or resend email links to your order page, and the file link is only created when you click there. So even a forwarded email leads at most to your metered order page, never straight to the file.
• When a store resends digital delivery, prior emailed bearer links that could reveal that item are revoked before the replacement is issued. Resending does not change the purchase’s download counters, limit, or expiry.

Running out or expiring

If you hit your download limit, you’ll see “Download limit reached — contact the store to restore access,” wired to the store’s contact details. This is a firm stop, not a “try again later” — the store owner has to restore your access.

For the store owner

You have per-order recovery controls so a mistake never permanently locks a paying customer out. For any order you can raise or clear the download cap, reset the counter, extend or clear the expiry, reactivate an expired file, and restore a grant you revoked by accident (with a reason).

Refunds and cancellations

1. A full refund or approved cancellation of a digital line removes access to that file (and any license keys with it).
2. A partial refund — say, refunding 1 of 3 copies — does not remove access. You keep it until the whole line is refunded.

Note

For safety, each download is recorded with a scrambled, non-reversible fingerprint of the device and network it came from. This lets a store tell an honest buyer using three devices apart from a link that’s been shared to hundreds of strangers, before deciding whether to reset or restore access — no personal details are stored.