The idea of a shadow library is to disseminate knowledge to everyone, to provide easy access to readily available content which is made inaccessible through pa

The idea of a shadow library is to disseminate knowledge to everyone, to provide easy access to readily available content which is made inaccessible through paywalls, copyright, or other similar barriers. At inception, these databases were created to make academic content freely available which generally does not compensate the original publishers. But now it has been expanded to support the knowledge for free movement. The legal status is questionable as creators can provide their own content to such libraries but their publishers might not agree to it.