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Purpose: This paper aims to show how an illegal repository of literature, the Z-library, relates to and influences its users and how this relation is unique due to the illegal nature of the platform. The paper utilizes the idea of gamification to exemplify how to motivate users to contribute to a large shadow library in order to create the “world's largest e-book library,” sans “librarians.”

Design/methodology/approach: The study makes use of an ethnographic approach. It interrogates the functions of the website through intensive use—a close reading of sorts. The data provide a foundation for illustrating how illegal text repositories function at a surface level and how their design appeals to their user-base.

Findings: The paper provides a thorough and non-biased overview of how a “black open access” or “shadow library” site provides its users with pirated literature. It suggests that the lynchpin sustaining their functionality is a gamification of piracy designed to motivate a fragmented collective of individuals who work primarily for personal reward, rather than altruistic goals.

Research limitations/implications: Due to the design of the study, the findings are not universal or applicable to all illegal repositories of text. Readers and researchers are encouraged to apply the concept introduced here to other cases.

Social implications: This paper includes implication on the perception of literature piracy, how pirated literature is distributed and who performs the labor required to sustain illicit text repositories.

Originality/value: This paper provides a novel conceptual basis to study literature piracy.