Piracy in the Internet is ineradicable.  Just a few days ago my colleagues showed me a new Sci-Hub online service for downloading articles from academic journals.  The site is available at http://sci-hub.org/ (two other URLs that can also be found in the Web, http://sci-hub.info/ and http://sci-hub.site50.net/, don’t function now).  The interface is in Russian only, but you can try it nevertheless, it’s in fact very simple.  Just type your search request (for example, the title of an article, or the DOI) and press Enter.  You will receive a list of available links.  The service uses its own network of proxy servers to gain access to protected commercial databases.

While working with Sci-Hub, one should remember about its limits.  The downloading of the articles, especially in PDF format, can last rather long—from fifteen seconds to two minutes.  Not all the articles are available in PDF, sometimes only HTML version can be found.  Not all the articles are really available; be ready to get an error message instead of the text you are looking for.  If a button Поменять прокси (‘Change the Proxy’) appears at the right side of the page, try to use it; sometimes it can help.  If you need the whole book or a journal issue, you must download the articles or chapters randomly, changing the proxy server after each article and making a break for at least 45 minutes after each three or four articles.  Otherwise Sci-Hub may be banned and it’ll take time for its developers to regain access to the server you are interested in.

UPDATE: The new address of Sci-Hub is http://sci-hub.cc/. The old addresses are not available.