I'm taking a paid online course in which the videos are streamed through Flash. After much trouble such as quality fluctuations, unexpected changes in playback speed and frozen screens (also experienced by other users), I've decided to download the videos using an add-on for Firefox.

That, however, violates the terms of service, even though I obviously don't intend to make any commercial use of the videos and I'm going to be the only one watching them. I'd like to know if the content provider can notice, using some kind of heuristic, that I'm not streaming the videos but downloading them.

I've been careful not to download a whole bunch of classes in a short period of time (before they'd have finished streaming if I were watching them), and in order to emulate an expected bandwidth usage I've been setting the videos at the end before I begin downloading them - even though that probably doesn't make any sense. I'd be glad if someone could illuminate me on that.