By Paulette Freixas
It’s a fact of university life: alongside lecture notes and case briefs, many laptops quietly house a library of free textbook PDFs. For students grappling with skyrocketing textbook prices, stumbling upon a free PDF online can feel like winning the lottery. But beneath the surface of convenience lies a web of copyright infringement, legal gray areas, and ethical dilemmas. From the perspective of copyright law, the downloading and distribution of such materials constitutes clear infringement, yet enforcement remains rare and inconsistent. This article examines the legal status of pirated textbooks, the risks involved, and the broader implications for students and the academic publishing industry.
The Legal Reality
Textbooks, like most academic materials, are protected under copyright law, which grants authors and publishers exclusive rights to reproduce, distribute, and sell their work. This applies both under domestic copyright laws and international agreements such as the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. Adopted in 1886, this convention sets minimum standards for the protection of works and establishes that works published in one Contracting State are subject to the same protection in the other Contracting States. As of February 2025, 181 countries are parties to the convention.
U.S. copyright law (17 U.S. Code § 106) and similar provisions in other jurisdictions make it clear that reproduction in copies and distribution without consent breach the rights of copyright holders, as these actions fall under the exclusive rights of the copyright owner. Therefore, sharing links to pirated textbooks via messaging platforms, drives, or online forums, as is common practice among university students, constitutes unauthorized distribution. Under 17 U.S. Code § 504, those who infringe copyright can be subject to civil penalties, including damages or additional profits the infringer gained.
Lawsuits are commonly brought against large-scale distributors of pirated content rather than the average student downloader. For example, major academic textbook publishers, among these Macmillan Learning, McGraw Hill, and Pearson Education, brought suit against Library Genesis (LibGen) in September 2023 for illegal distribution of over 20,000 of their textbooks online. The Guardian reports, “The complaint said that LibGen’s activities cause ‘serious financial and creative harm’ because they devalue the textbook market and deprive publishers of income from textbook purchases.” In a 2015 suit, LibGen was found liable for $15m in damages to a publisher, and in 2022, The Department of Justice charged and arrested two Russian Nationals in Argentina for running Z-Library, an online e-book piracy website. Echoing the ethical position of those strongly against the practice, Breon Peace, former United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, asserted that such offenses “victimize authors, publishers, and booksellers” and “deprive their victims of both ingenuity and hard-earned revenue.”
The Reality on Campuses
Despite the legal risks, many students routinely turn to pirated textbooks as a way to cut costs. According to the academic publisher Perlego, there were 300,000 searches on piracy sites for illegal textbook downloads among UK students in September 2023 alone. Every year, textbooks rank among the biggest out-of-pocket costs for families and students attempting to pay for college. The textbook publishing industry is valued at $3.18 billion, raking in substantial profits even as prices continue to rise. The Education Data Initiative has found that the cost of textbooks has shot up by 1041% between 1977 and 2015 and that on average, students at four-year institutions spend about $1200 per year on textbooks.
Economic barriers to textbook access can have negative effects on students’ performance. The better alternative, in which students can access textbooks affordably without infringing on an author or publisher’s rights, is open textbooks. These are defined by the U.S. PIRG Education fund as textbooks that are “faculty-written and peer-reviewed like traditional textbooks, but they are published under an open license, meaning they are free online, free to download, and affordable in print.” Eight-two percent of students responding to their survey say this practice would significantly improve their performance in a course.
Piracy thrives where affordability fails. Until publishers and institutions seriously confront the exploitative pricing of educational materials, students will most likely continue to navigate the legal grey areas to meet their basic academic needs. Long-term change will require institutions to prioritize the affordability and accessibility in educational materials while also respecting authors’ rights and intellectual property protections.
Featured image courtesy of Unsplash.com
