How to Bypass the Scribd Paywall and Unblur Documents

A simple hack for most Scribd documents

Source: Paywall Hacks

Originally marketed as the “YouTube” for documents, Scribd began its operation as a way for anyone to publish and host their documents and writing online. Born out of the need for one of the site’s creators to host his father’s medical research without having to pay for publication and wait over a year for the documents to be published, the site gained notoriety in 2009 after signing a deal with several publications, including The New York Times, Huffington Post, TechCrunch, and several other blogs and publications to host their documents, as well as for their Scribd Store, which allowed users to sell digital copies of their work online.

Scribd is used by millions of people daily to host and share online documents using the platform built by the site itself. In the site’s documents section, you’ll find historical papers, political documents, poll results, and plenty of other information for use in your college assignments, term papers, or just as a general document of interest. Much of this information is obscured by paywalls.

There is also little oversight of the content that people upload onto Scribd in order to gain access. I once even found my own research paper, watermarked and obscured by Scribd (I had not uploaded it and still to…