EDICT Licence Statement and Copyright Notices

COPYRIGHT

Dictionary copyright is a difficult point, because clearly the first lexicographer who published "inu means dog" could not claim a copyright violation over all subsequent Japanese dictionaries. While it is usual to consult other dictionaries for "accurate lexicographic information", as Nelson put it, wholesale copying is, of course, not permissable. What makes each dictionary unique (and copyrightable) is the particular selection of words, the phrasing of the meanings, the presentation of the contents (a very important point in the case of EDICT), and the means of publication. Of course, the fact that for the most part the kanji and kana of each entry are coming from public sources, and the structure and layout of the entries themselves are quite unlike those in any published dictionary, adds a degree of protection to EDICT.

The advice I have received from people who know about these things is that EDICT is just as much a new dictionary as any others on the market. Readers may see an entry which looks familiar, and say "Aha! That comes from the XYZ Jiten!". They may be right, and they may be wrong. After all there aren't too many translations of neko. Let me make one thing quite clear, despite considerable temptation (Electronic Books can be easily decoded), NONE of this dictionary came from commercial machine-readable dictionaries. I have a case of RSI in my right elbow to prove it.

Please do not contribute entries to EDICT which have come directly from copyrightable sources. It is hard to check these, and you may be jeopardizing EDICT's status.

USAGE

EDICT can be used, with acknowledgement, for any purpose whatever, EXCEPT for incorporation in commercial products. It cannot be sold, except at a nominal charge for the distribution medium.

With regard to commercial products, if the developer of such a product wishes to make use of EDICT, an acceptable approach is to provide for users to obtain a copy of the EDICT file themselves and access it via the product, either with or without a provided utility program. It must not be "locked up" through a formatting or indexing system. These simple precautions avoid violation of the provisions of EDICT's Licence Statement.

APPENDIX A: EDICT LICENCE STATEMENT

Copyright (C) 1994, 1995 James William Breen

This licence statement and copyright notice applies to the EDICT Japanese/English Dictionary file, the associated documentation file EDICT.DOC, and any data files which are derived from them.

COPYING AND DISTRIBUTION

Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of these files provided this copyright notice and permission notice is distributed with all copies. Any distribution of the files must take place without a financial return, except a charge to cover the cost of the distribution medium.

Permission is granted to make and distribute extracts or subsets of the EDICT file under the same conditions applying to verbatim copies.

Permission is granted to translate the English elements of the EDICT file into other languages, and to make and distribute copies of those translations under the same conditions applying to verbatim copies.

USAGE

These files may be freely used by individuals, and may be accessed by software belonging to, or operated by, such individuals.

The files, extracts from the files, and translations of the files must not be sold as part of any commercial software package, nor must they be incorporated in any published dictionary or other printed document without the specific permission of the copyright holder.

COPYRIGHT

Copyright over the documents covered by this statement is held by James William BREEN.


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