Digital Dictatorship: The Ban on Shadow Libraries and the Gatekeeping of Academic Literature
Kahkashan Aafreen | 27 August 2025 | The Companion
On 23rd August 2025, the Delhi High Court ordered a ban on digital shadow libraries across the country in response to piracy complaints filed by the publishers. The ban largely affects websites such as Sci-hub and Libgen, used for academic papers and e-books respectively. A shadow library is a digital space that provides access to a plethora of books, articles, and journals free of cost, which are usually held behind an expensive paywall. The decision comes in a line of long-standing conflict over open access between academics and publishers, where one side demands free access to all knowledge for all people, but the other side emphasises its copyright policies.
While the publishers’ concern for copyright is justifiable to an extent, the fact remains that such paywalls limit the reach of their publications as well, which is not in anyone’s well interests….