How to Jump Paywalls?
Chung van Gog, 03 October 2019
A guide for trespassers.
Intellectual property poses interesting questions regarding its ethical justification. (A quick Google search for credible books about copyright yields Infringement Nation: Copyright 2.0 and You and Authors, Users, and Pirates: Copyright Law and Subjectivity among many others.) This post lists some techniques for finding the full contents of books and journal articles online. However, I do not commit to any value judgments regarding intellectual property; the reader may use these techniques at her discretion. In no case will I, Chung van Gog, or this website, luminouscuboids, be liable for any damages resulting from applying the methods sketched in this cuboid. The title and subtitle of this cuboid do not promote any course of action.
Some legal resources for finding journal articles can be found here: Resources for Finding and Accessing Scientific Papers.
Sometimes a simple Google search for [book or article name] filetype:pdf will work. But only rarely.
Z-library contains 5+ million ebooks and 75+ million journal articles, all freely accessible. Its URLs include (a) the redirection page Z-Library, (b) Electronic Library (books) (mirror) for ebooks, and (c) Electronic Library (articles) (mirror) for articles. A free account allows you to see your past downloads, save books, get personal recommendations, and set up Z-Alerts that notify you when a new book becomes available.
Sometimes ebooks on Z-library have been deleted. In that case you can try Library Genesis, now here, to check if they have a copy. PDF Drive also has some ebooks.
If an article cannot be found on Z-Library then there’s Sci-Hub (current website). For live mirrors, see Where is Sci-Hub now?.
For file conversions I usually use Cloud Convert. I use Google Drive and Google Books for saving and reading ebooks, but there are many options. Google Books and Amazon’s preview feature can provide access to parts of books. And many older books can be found at the Internet Archive.
See also the Piracy Mega thread on Reddit.