What is the Website SolarMovie and is it Even Legal? (2024)

by Tom Foster Published Dec 1, 2018

Sites that are designed to allow people to watch content they would otherwise have to pay an arm and a leg for have become highly popular since streaming became a thing and it seems as though new companies are popping up all the time unbeknownst to many people until they begin to search around. One big problem with a lot of the sites that pop up seems to be that they’re not willing to go through entirely legal channels all the time in order to get their business going, but they tend to use servers that are located in one country while their domain name is registered in another. In other words these companies are taking material that they know people will want to watch and getting away without paying the rights and other charges the need to be acknowledged when it comes to being all legal and aboveboard. So in all likelihood SolarMovie isn’t legal, but taking it down would be a giant headache for anyone that bothered.

The Philippines, where this company is supposedly registered, seems to be a popular place for such companies to spring up and since it’s not hosting any illegal content it’s firmly under the safe harbour laws. In other words they’re not breaking any major rules and are therefore not subject to any real punishment by any law that might otherwise lay the smack down on them. The site does have links to other sites that do feature illegal content however so it might just be a waiting game to see if it’s going to stay up and continue business or if the owners get a little too greedy and overstep their bounds. The sad part of this is that America taking them down would be just another way to embarrass the country since by using the DMCA to take down the domain name of a company that had actually purchased legal rights to show American sports online the idea that America is able to go after real perpetrators has been diminished. The company ended up suing and winning against America as they went on to establish a new name and collect damages.

So that might make America a big gunshy when it comes to taking on SolarMovie, if such a thing ever does happen, but the borderline illegality of the site is something that can’t really be contested from an ethical standpoint since they are in fact in league with sites that do offer illegal content. Some might argue that they can’t be taken down by association with such sites but that would be the same argument that might fail if a person said they had no affiliation with a gang but still did business with them now and then. That person would still be complicit and since SolarMovie is in business with said illegal sites it would make them complicit as well. But going after them is another matter as there has to be hard evidence that people are going to care about enough to really risk looking like fools again.

In truth SolarMovie is not legal, at least not from an ethical standpoint, but it’s not doing a lot of harm to be honest. If anything it’s taking perhaps a fraction of the business that American sites enjoy and isn’t really hurting their profit margins that much since people are still willing to go through the legal channels and obtain the entertainment they so badly desire. The fact that sites like SolarMovie do in fact stay in business with illegal sites is enough to turn some people away and keep them paying the increasing costs of legitimate business. If a person were a conspiracy theorist they might even decide to state something out of left field like the probability of the legitimate companies paying sites like SolarMovie on the down low to cause this kind of trouble just so they could increase their rates and keep people too scared to sign up for other sites because they’re scared of getting in trouble. It’s a very thin and implausible conspiracy design of course, but there are those out there that would probably entertain it.

The long and short of it is that no, SolarMovie is not legal and despite the fact that they do little to no harm to the US entertainment industry, they are in effect skimming in order to gain customers and allow them the chance to experience a cheaper experience with greater risk. There are many that are willing to take it simply because they can’t afford or don’t want to pay the exorbitant amounts that legitimate businesses charge, but then there are also those that like to ‘stick it to the man’ by doing something they perceive as a little bit of rebellion in a time when such things are quickly becoming rather mundane and boring. After all, real rebellion formed this country and the last meaningful protests were back in the 60s. You don’t want to pay top dollar for your service then be a ‘rebel’ and find a site like SolarMovie, you crazy diamond you.