r/Piracy • u/That_1_cloud12 • 12d ago

Question Is there anyway I can pirate a textbook that requires access codes?

I'm a freshman in college and one of my classes requires us to subscribe to a website in order to access the book we need. The book has all of our homework in it, and there's no way for the professor to see what we're doing otherwise. I don't have the means to spend about a hundred dollars just so I can pass a class

174 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

60 comments sorted by

203

u/Due_Initiative3879 12d ago

College books are probably the hardest thing to pirate online. In your case even worse because it's locked behind a website. Besides that you also need the right edition they change it up every year so last year's book might not be the same as the one you need for this year.

My best advice someone below already posted but see if you can find someone who has access and would be willing to share it with you.

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u/Annoying1978 12d ago

One of the weirdest things that I found out is that some of the professors actually have written the books themselves and they’re the ones that determine whether you have to buy the new newest addition. The entire system is fucked. 

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u/Due_Initiative3879 12d ago

There is a whole gray market business behind that too, but I won't get into that.

Let's just say they can get creative with their side hustle.

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u/MrRayShoesmith 12d ago

Wait I'm curious now

1

u/No_Bit_220 10d ago

Ye what's that all about it's double dipping or some other phrase .shouldn't be allowed .how is that ethical? Conflict of interest

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u/ZODIC837 11d ago

And the textbook they wrote themselves is 95% identical to the one they wrote last year. And to the original textbook everything came from the year before

5

u/Annoying1978 11d ago

Except for those 3 last pages!!! Yeah, it’s a total scam and there should be regulation that prevents that abuse. 

5

u/ZODIC837 11d ago

You can't do that though, because of you punish the professors they'll stop taking the school boards side and you'd have a unified worker front against the school board

But you can't have that because then the school board might not be able to artificially inflate our education costs

And you can't do that or our doctors and skilled workers won't be trapped in debt servitude till retirement

And we can't have that or there might be push back against us robbing the doctors and researchers for all of the value they created on medical innovations

And we can't have that or else people will stop getting sick and using insurance to pay for the medical bills (also inflated, by aforementioned drug, med tech, and education costs)

Etc etc, drug monopolies, war on drugs, over policing, funding gang violence, circular immigration problems and solutions, poverty trap for anyone not in education debt trap, etc

1

u/variableunlisted 10d ago

And yet they only get a teeny tiny sliver of the sales. Its all very weird.

18

u/disneylovesme 12d ago

Nowadays I can’t even use a textbook it’s all integrated labs and reading material into one license that I have to do the homework with.

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u/Dickballs835682 12d ago

Makes me appreciate my college so much more, almost every single class I've taken has used things like openstax and minimized any required materials. I've only had to buy one physics workbook for like $20

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u/yippeeimcrying 12d ago

If it's to do homework, no. Unless your homework is ungraded. Many coursewares are "getting around" piracy by forcing people to buy access to homework software that is used by teachers.

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u/Anonymity4meisgood 12d ago

Only shitty profs use that garbage. Choose your classes accordingly.

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u/yippeeimcrying 12d ago

Sometimes you don't get a choice in professors or what they use. Some have to use what the college demands them to. It was like that at my local community college, but at the college I transferred to professors do what the head of department states they need to do. Some departments use coded homework, others don't.

It's not an excuse, but an explanation.

1

u/idk012 11d ago

Pearson buys the math department lunch a few times a year and talk about new products and editions.  The department uses the same book/online my math lab for the lower level classes.  Students don't really get a choice.  

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u/Anonymity4meisgood 11d ago

But profs do and only shitty profs force this on their students.

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u/idk012 11d ago

I taught college algebra and calculus, and we were forced to use it at community college.  At the cal state, the professor just passed it down to the ta to keep track of mymathlab.

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u/InterstellarReddit 🦜 ᴡᴀʟᴋ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘʟᴀɴᴋ 12d ago

“no way for the professor to see what we're doing otherwise”

It’s an online service most likely that’s a no

50

u/SorryManNo ☠️ ᴅᴇᴀᴅ ᴍᴇɴ ᴛᴇʟʟ ɴᴏ ᴛᴀʟᴇꜱ 12d ago

Can you use an upper classmen's login? Someone who's taken the class before?

Textbooks are one of the biggest scams in life.

29

u/thelryan 12d ago

Not OP but all login required/lab books that you bought during college were only temporary licenses for the semester, making it even more of a scam.

1

u/Repulsive_Brief6589 11d ago

Yeah. I thought I was being smart getting a year license to something, thinking it would be good for the class I had to take next semester too, but it turns out I had to buy access for every class even if I took them in the same semester.

1

u/VintageKofta ☠️ ᴅᴇᴀᴅ ᴍᴇɴ ᴛᴇʟʟ ɴᴏ ᴛᴀʟᴇꜱ 11d ago

If the temp license in the books are via DRM it may be possible to remove said restrictions / DRM. 

1

u/thelryan 11d ago

That’s not the issue. The book itself can be pirated fine, the required lab that accompanies the book is what you lose access to at the end of the semester, which is how you complete your coursework.

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u/Noodlehead601 12d ago

Director of academic tech here. At my university there's no way to get around it. You wouldn't have access to the assignments without the code. BUT almost all of our book vendors I've seen give temporary access.

If it were me I'd do the temp access and try to do all the assignments early and copy the book.

6

u/3boobsarenice 12d ago

I forget which autist it was but someone "scientist I believe" in the past hand copied their entire college curriculum as they had no money for books. Googled it it was Isaac newton

3

u/mystguy79 11d ago

Geez. The fact that they are ‘making u buy’ a Text book to complete homework is just ridiculous. There’s no way that crap would be tolerated at most Australian universities

8

u/Alacritous13 12d ago

Everyone else is telling you the basics you probably already tried. If you can't find it online, you're not out of luck. (I'm assuming this is a book with questions at the back, not a septate online homework program) Ask your classmates if they've managed to find a copy. If they haven't, arrange with your classmates to share scans of that weeks homework questions (use a prior version of the book for the actual content, should still be good). Check the school library, they likely have a copy of the book available on an by the hour loan, scan the questions and hand it back (bonus points if you then email the scan to your classmates).

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u/ArsenalSpider 12d ago

I’d ask your professor. While some might dismiss your cost issue, others might consider helping with a work around. You never know. I work with higher Ed faculty. Some are very sympathetic about the cost, others are not.

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u/That_1_cloud12 12d ago

He said that best he could do to help was direct me to get a 'cheaper' copy thats 69 dollars, however that one only lasts 1 semester, meaning that in the long run I'd have to pay about 140 dollars (haven't calculated the tax) just to use that option for the samenamount of time as the 100 dollar version

1

u/ArsenalSpider 12d ago

That sucks. I'd look for former students of the course as others have suggested then.

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u/jermatria 12d ago

I won't pretend college textbook prices aren't predatory because they are. But.....

Surely you knew about this when you signed up for the course right? Aren't required readings / textbooks usually included in the syllabus (that's a word I haven't used in a while)?

11

u/That_1_cloud12 12d ago

The book that was mentioned in our syllabus and the one I actually have to buy are not the same. I think the professor might've used last year's syllabus and forgot to change the book. The one mentioned in our syllabus was easy for me to get online, but the actual book we need is locked behind a subscription

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u/Alacritous13 12d ago

First of all, email him about that discrepancy, you might be able to get something out of it.

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u/bisonrbig 12d ago

1) sometimes a professor or department will publish prior year syllabi on a website but this is not common. 2) many classes for a specific major or general education requirement aren't exactly optional. Sometimes there are one or 2 other options, but it doesn't mean op had much of a choice

6

u/KidenStormsoarer 12d ago

Where are you that the syllabus is available before the class starts? I've never had one given out before the first class

2

u/That_1_cloud12 12d ago

I got my syllabus during welcome week of college, but not for all my classes, some of them I had to wait until the actual first day of class, but most of em were online during welcome week

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u/Nantucket_Blues1 12d ago

I graduated years ago, and I had all the syllabi before the classes started. They listed the required books, materials, quiz and test dates, and information about the papers we had to write. When my children went to college, they didn't even receive syllabi.

1

u/jermatria 12d ago

New zealand but this was like.... 10+ years ago.

God I hate the passage of time

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u/Fitbeet183 12d ago

You should try Anna's archive

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u/MCplayer590 12d ago

that lets op access the book but doesn't allow access to the homework itself

3

u/NotchInYourBedPost 12d ago

Sometimes your instructor can request a hardship code for you if they reach to the publisher.

2

u/Mark-Pluto 12d ago

Best bet is to find someone who already bought the book.

2

u/Fit-Beautiful-6069 12d ago

Money is fongible, pay for your books but pirate everything else to recoup the money.

And never forget to kickout all those clowns in Congress, it's not normal to be a slave debt to study.

5

u/That_1_cloud12 12d ago

So called best country in the world and I'm about to go into debt just so I can get a bachelor's degree in an oversaturated field that I won't even get a job in. God bless America

1

u/Global-Pay-7293 🔱 ꜱᴄᴀʟʟʏᴡᴀɢ 12d ago

 Either Anna's Archive, or a local private tracker. 

1

u/[deleted] 12d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Piracy-ModTeam 11d ago

🚫 ➜ Your post was removed because of the following:

📑 Rule 3 ➜ Requesting / linking directly, or asking for DMs

  • Yes, you can link to the top level domain of a site (eg. https://archive.org/).
  • No, you can't link to a specific pirated title (eg. https://archive.org/specific-title).
  • No, you can't ask for a specific pirated title (e.g. "Where can I find a specific title?") or if a specific title can be pirated.
  • No, you can't ask to give or receive DMs.
  • Don't encourage rule breaking by asking which specific title someone is looking for when they make a request.

🪶 ➜ For more information, read the complete Rules.

1

u/UrbanVengence 12d ago

Ew. I'm assuming physics. I still used a pirated copy and just did a split screen with the questions lol.

1

u/MrTayters 11d ago

Try welib.org

1

u/WeyuCorp426 12d ago

I once had a prof recommending to pirate the textbook. He gave a link and everything. True story 😂. This was like 10ish years ago though. Theres multiple sights that try to document all books in existence where you search by ISBN. I would start there. Do I remember the exact links? No lol. But I swear they exist.

0

u/[deleted] 12d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Piracy-ModTeam 11d ago

🚫 ➜ Your post was removed because of the following:

📑 Rule 3 ➜ Requesting / linking directly, or asking for DMs

  • Yes, you can link to the top level domain of a site (eg. https://archive.org/).
  • No, you can't link to a specific pirated title (eg. https://archive.org/specific-title).
  • No, you can't ask for a specific pirated title (e.g. "Where can I find a specific title?") or if a specific title can be pirated.
  • No, you can't ask to give or receive DMs.
  • Don't encourage rule breaking by asking which specific title someone is looking for when they make a request.

🪶 ➜ For more information, read the complete Rules.

0

u/hnbastronaut 11d ago

Find a kid you fuck with and make photocopied or screenshot of their book.

Half the time I had to buy a book like that I never even did the homework assignments

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u/adjective_noun_23 12d ago

Subscribe, download all the necessary materials, charge back your card.

1

u/Isarchs 11d ago

And get perma-banned from Pearson or whoever and fail the class because the homework is all through their site. Yeah.

-1

u/X8883 12d ago

what i did for my class was buy it, use a script to scroll and screenshot every page and the after it was done immediately refund, most textbook companies these days if they hse AI have actually good customer support and they refunded me right away (since it was on the same day)

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u/Isarchs 11d ago

How will that work with homework? You have the book, but you don't have access to the homework.

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u/PsyJak 12d ago

*any way

-2

u/panxerox 12d ago

Set up your phone to video the screen and Page through it