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After "awareness" campaigns that failed to move the needle for years, Denmark’s leading anti-piracy group is shifting to a more aggressive litigation strategy. The Rights Alliance confirmed it will begin filing civil lawsuits against individual students who are caught sharing even a single digital textbook. The anti-piracy group prefers not to mention the targeted platforms but says it uses undercover monitoring of private groups to gather evidence.
Online piracy is often associated with entertainment, such as movies, games, and music. However, there are millions pirating content for educational purposes too.
This isn’t a new phenomenon at all. Roughly two decades ago, there were already dedicated torrent sites that specialized in textbook releases. Since then, book piracy has become much more widespread.
In Denmark, local anti-piracy group Rights Alliance has had this issue on its radar for a while. In the past, the group has been tracking down individuals said to have profited from the sale of pirated textbooks. This resulted in several convictions against suppliers and sellers.
Despite these high-profile convictions, student sharing habits have remained remarkably stagnant. According to the most recent 2025 survey from Epinion, textbook sharing is widespread. Of all students who use digital textbooks, more than half (57%) have acquired at least one textbook illegally.
Survey results (TF translated)
Most students are well aware of the fact that sharing textbooks, either online or offline, is illegal. Regardless, the survey found that 74% of the students nonetheless believe that it is acceptable to do so.
Anti-Piracy Group Will Sue Pirating Students
The Rights Alliance has clearly had enough of the continued popularity of textbook piracy. To send a clear message on behalf of publishers, the group will start filing lawsuits against pirating students this month.
“For many years we have tried to reach students through dialogue and information, but the effect cannot be seen in the measurements we have conducted over a seven-year period,” Rights Alliance director Maria Fredenslund says.
“When more than half are still sharing textbooks illegally, we need to send a clearer signal. There must be consequences if the law is broken – just like in all other areas of society.”
The Rights Alliance plans to file civil lawsuits based on the local Copyright Act and will focus on cases where it is clear that the textbook sharing is illegal. The anti-piracy group notes that, if found guilty, students can be ordered to pay a fine to the state.
Speaking with TorrentFreak, Rights Alliance said that these fines are estimated to be several thousand Danish kroner (1000DKK = 160USD), in part dependent on how much textbooks are shared.
‘Zero Tolerance’
People who share dozens of books are understandably risking a higher fine than those who share a single copy. However, Rights Alliance stresses that there’s a zero-policy stance, as even a single instance of unlawful sharing is enough to trigger a lawsuit.
Crucially, this is not a traditional “settlement” scheme. The Rights Alliance confirmed to TorrentFreak that they are not seeking damages or private settlements. There is no profit motive; the goal is simply to force a cultural change through the court system.
Rights Alliance preferred not to tell us how many students it expects to target. Similarly, the anti-piracy group did not want to mention which platforms or services are monitored to gather evidence. Instead, it simply said that it maintains an active presence on multiple platforms and in various groups.
The publishers believe that if textbook piracy continues at the current pace, there might not be a market for Danish textbooks in the future. This is not just a problem for publishers but also for educational institutions, which are asked to help teach their students about these concerns.
“We do not want to punish individuals, but to create a cultural change where students understand that illegal sharing has consequences,” Fredenslund says, adding that institutions are also encouraged to sanction copyright infringement under their roof.
In closing, it’s worth stressing that the textbook ‘piracy’ problem isn’t just limited to students. The Danish Epinion survey found that for students who received an illegal book via their official study intranet, 37% received the file directly from their teachers, lecturers, or professors.
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