Last Updated: October 2026
Welcome to SinoPoems ("we", "our", or "us"). These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your access to and scholarly engagement with sinopoems.com and its digital literary repository. By browsing, accessing, or citing material from this platform, you agree to be bound by these Terms.
1. The Platform Mission and Educational Ethos
SinoPoems operates as a non-commercial digital humanities archive dedicated to preserving ancient Classical Chinese poetry through critical textual collation, phonetic transcription, and scholarly English translation. The platform is offered free of charge to global researchers, university students, and literary readers.
2. Intellectual Property and Dual-Layer Rights
Our digital repository operates under a clear, twofold intellectual property framework:
- Public Domain Source Texts: The original Chinese classical poems, including works authored during the Tang, Song, and earlier imperial dynasties, are historical cultural heritage residing permanently in the global public domain.
- Proprietary Scholarly Works: All original English verse translations, metric structural reconstructions, line-by-line philological exegesis, historical apparatus commentaries (notes), and curated typography published on sinopoems.com are the intellectual property of SinoPoems and its contributing Sinologists, protected under international copyright law.
3. Permitted Academic and Personal Use
We actively encourage educational dissemination. You are granted a limited, revocable, non-exclusive license to use the materials under the following conditions:
- Scholarly Citation & Research: You may quote brief excerpts of our translations and commentaries in academic papers, theses, and university lectures, provided proper attribution is given to SinoPoems (e.g., citing "Translation and Commentary courtesy of SinoPoems.com").
- Personal Reading & Study: You may store or print individual pages strictly for personal, non-commercial literary study.
- Classroom Teaching: Educators may freely reference or project site content in non-profit educational environments.
4. Prohibited Uses
To preserve archival integrity and prevent commercial exploitation, the following actions are strictly forbidden without prior written authorization:
- Systematic data scraping, bulk harvesting, or automated crawling that strains server infrastructure or replicates the archive in its entirety.
- Commercial reproduction, syndication, publishing, or redistribution of our proprietary English translations or exegesis for monetary gain.
- Modifying, disassembling, or removing attribution, copyright notices, or metadata from our translations.
- Attempting to compromise the security, cryptographic protocols, or operational availability of the digital platform.
5. Philological Accuracy and Disclaimer
While our editorial board applies rigorous philological scrutiny collating against standard imperial anthologies (such as Quan Tangshi and Quan Songci), classical texts naturally embody historical variant readings and centuries of divergent commentaries. Materials are provided on an "as-is" and "as-available" basis for educational and literary inquiry. We make no warranty that translations reflect an absolute, singular interpretation to the exclusion of other scholarly perspectives.
6. Third-Party References and External Links
SinoPoems may provide external hyperlinks to university library archives, digital concordance databases, or academic journals. These external resources are owned and operated by independent entities. We assume no responsibility or liability for the content, privacy practices, or accuracy of third-party platforms.
7. Limitation of Liability
To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, SinoPoems, its editors, translators, and contributors shall not be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, or consequential damages resulting from your use of or inability to access the digital archive, or reliance upon any textual interpretation contained herein.
8. Termination of Access
We reserve the right to restrict or block network access (via IP filtering or rate limiting) to any user or automated client engaging in abusive scraping, denial-of-service activities, or willful violation of these Terms.
9. Governing Principles and Modifications
These Terms shall be interpreted in accordance with standard international copyright principles and fair use doctrines. We reserve the right to update or amend these Terms at any time. Continued use of the archive following published updates constitutes formal acceptance of the modified Terms.
10. Inquiries and Editorial Permissions
For requests concerning institutional syndication, anthology reprinting permissions, or academic rights clearance, please contact our editorial board:
SinoPoems Editorial & Legal Compliance
Online Inquiries: Submit Online Inquiry →
Official Repository: sinopoems.com