Don't Try to Pirate Movies on SpaceX's Starlink

If you try to openly pirate movies on SpaceX’s satellite internet service Starlink, be prepared to receive a warning from the company demanding that you stop. 

One Starlink subscriber was curious if SpaceX enforces its policy against downloading copyrighted content. And turns out, it does. The subscriber, “substrate-97,” posted the piracy warning notice he received from SpaceX on Reddit this past weekend. 

“We must insist that you and/or others using your Starlink service refrain from illegal downloads of copyrighted content,” the notice says. “Downloading copyrighted materials without a license may lead to suspension or termination of your service, and put you at risk of legal action by the content owner.”

Substrate-97, who is based in the US, said on Reddit they were deliberately torrenting over Starlink to see what would happen. A file download for a "CBS show" ended up triggering the warning.

“Been doing it since I got Starlink, so like two months,” substrate-97 added. “It's been pretty low key stuff though. Finally downloaded something from a Fortune 500 company and my assumption was that it was specifically that.”

The notice also reveals that Starlink tries to stop piracy like other ground-based internet service providers: If the ISP becomes aware you're downloading a bootleg movie, the company can automatically send out a warning to the offending subscriber. This can occur if the copyright holder is tracking torrent downloads for a movie file. The copyright holder can supply the ISP a list of IP addresses associated with the pirated movie file, demanding it take action.

Still, it’s not exactly hard to mask your real IP address. Although we don’t condone piracy, it’s well-known you can prevent a broadband provider from logging your internet traffic by using a VPN, which can encrypt the connection. A VPN can also change your computer's IP address. Hence, a Starlink user can still theoretically pirate content on the service—as long as they don’t do it openly.

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While Starlink operates over 1,300 satellites in orbit, the internet itself comes from ground stations on Earth connected to local fiber networks.

Editor's Note: This story has been updated to say a download for a CBS show apparently caused substrate-97 to receive the warning from Starlink. It's also been corrected to point out the copyright holders will usually alert an ISP to whether a user's IP address has been spotted pirating content.

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