The pre-modern Chinese texts on this site are in the public domain. Much of the apparatus around them is not. This page is the public register of what we have used, and on what terms.
The distinction that matters
A text composed two thousand years ago is out of copyright. That does not mean every digital copy, typesetting, or translation of it is free to reproduce. Three things are commonly protected even when the underlying text is not:
- Modern critical editions. The editor’s choice of base text, collation, punctuation, and emendation is original scholarly work.
- Modern translations. An English rendering made in the twentieth or twenty-first century is the translator’s copyright, regardless of the age of the source.
- Photographic reproductions. A scan or photograph of a rare printing may be claimed by the holding library or publisher, even where the book itself is old.
Our own transcription and our own English rendering are ours to publish. Anything we take from a modern edition, translation, or image is either licensed, quoted within the limits of fair use and fair dealing with attribution, or not used at all.
Base-edition register
Each work we publish is listed below with its proposed base edition and the current state of its rights clearance. Nothing is transcribed in bulk until its row is confirmed.
| Work | Proposed base edition | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Huangdi neijing suwen 黃帝內經素問 | Pending confirmation | Not cleared | Standard modern critical editions are under copyright; the Ming and Song printings are public domain but require a facsimile source to be named. |
| Huangdi neijing lingshu 靈樞 | Pending confirmation | Not cleared | Same considerations as above. |
| Nanjing 難經 | Pending confirmation | Not cleared | — |
| Shanghan lun 傷寒論 | Pending confirmation | Not cleared | — |
This table is deliberately honest about being unfinished. Publishing a text before its source is cleared risks having to withdraw it along with every note and citation built on it.
Citing us
Our transcription, pinyin, and English renderings may be quoted with attribution and a link, including for teaching and non-commercial scholarly use. Please cite the base edition as well as this site — the site is the delivery mechanism, not the authority.
If we have got something wrong
If you hold rights in material that appears here and you have not licensed it to us, or if an attribution is wrong or missing, please write to us through the contact page. We will remove the material while the matter is resolved and record the removal here. We would rather take down a page than argue about it.