EDRDG

ELECTRONIC DICTIONARY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT GROUP

GENERAL DICTIONARY LICENCE STATEMENT

EDRDG Home Page

1. Introduction

In March 2000, James William Breen assigned ownership of the copyright of the dictionary files assembled, coordinated and edited by him to the The Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group, then at Monash University (hereafter "the Group"), on the understanding that the Group will foster the development of the dictionary files, and will utilize all monies received for use of the files for the further development of the files, and for research into computer lexicography and electronic dictionaries.

This document outlines the licence arrangement put in place by The Group for usage of the files. It replaces all previous copyright and licence statements applying to the files.

2. Application

This licence statement and copyright notice applies to the following dictionary files, the associated documentation files, and any data files which are derived from them.

Copyright over the documents covered by this statement is held by James William BREEN and The Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group.

3. Licence Conditions

The dictionary files are made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence (V3.0). The Licence Deed can be viewed here, and the full Licence Code is here.

In summary (extract from the Licence Deed):

You are free:
  • to Share - to copy, distribute and transmit the work
  • to Remix - to adapt the work
Under the following conditions:
  • Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
  • Share Alike. If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same, similar or a compatible licence.

For attribution of these files, you must:

  1. in the case of publishing significant extracts of the files, or material based on significant extracts of the files, e.g. in a published dictionary or in vocabulary lists, clearly acknowledge that you used the files for this purpose;

  2. in the case of a software package or WWW server, etc. which uses the files or incorporates data from the files, you must:

    1. acknowledge the usage and source of the files in the documentation, publicity material, WWW site of the package/server, etc.;

    2. provide copies of the documentation and licence files (in the case of software packages). Where the application packaging does not provide for the inclusion of such files (e.g. with iPhone applications), it is sufficient to provide links, as per the next point;

    3. provide links to either local copies of the documentation and licence files or to the locations of the files at Monash University or at the EDRDG site.

      If a WWW server is providing a dictionary function or an on-screen display of words from the files, the acknowledgement must be made on each screen display, e.g. in the form of a message at the foot of the screen or page. If, however, material from the files is mixed with information from other sources, it is sufficient to provide a general acknowledgement of the sources as described above.

      For the EDICT, JMdict and KANJIDIC files, the following URLs may be used or quoted:

See this page for samples of possible acknowledgement text.

Note that in all cases, the addition of material to the files or to extracts from the files does not remove or in any way diminish the Group's copyright over the files.

Note also that provided the conditions above are met, there is NO restriction placed on commercial use of the files. The files can be bundled with software and sold for whatever the developer wants to charge. Software using these files does not have to be under any form of open-source licence.

Where use of the files results in a financial return to the user, it is suggested that the user make a donation to the Group to assist with the continued development of the files. There are several ways of donating:

NB: No contract or agreement needs to be signed in order to use the files. By using the files, the user implicitly undertakes to abide by the conditions of this licence.

4. Warranty and Liability

While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information in the files, it is possible that errors may still be included. The files are made available without any warranty whatsoever as to their accuracy or suitability for a particular application.

Any individual or organization making use of the files must agree:

  1. to assume all liability for the use or misuse of the files, and must agree not to hold the Group liable for any actions or events resulting from use of the files.

  2. to refrain from bringing action or suit or claim against the Group or any of the Group's members on the basis of the use of the files, or any information included in the files.

  3. to indemnify the Group or its members in the case of action by a third party on the basis of the use of the files, or any information included in the files.

5. Copyright

Every effort has been made in the compilation of these files to ensure that the copyright of other compilers of dictionaries and lexicographic material has not been infringed. The Group asserts its intention to rectify immediately any breach of copyright brought to its attention.

Any individual or organization in possession of copies of the files, upon becoming aware that a possible copyright infringement may be present in the files, must undertake to contact the Group immediately with details of the possible infringement.

6. Prior Permission

All permissions for use of the files granted by James William Breen prior to March 2000 will be honoured and maintained, however the placing of the KANJD212 and EDICTH files under the GNU GPL has been withdrawn as of 25 March 2000.

7. Special Conditions for the KANJIDIC, KANJD212 and KANJIDIC2 Files

In addition to licensing arrangements described above, the following additional conditions apply to the KANJIDIC, KANJD212 and KANJIDIC2 files.

The following people have granted permission for material for which they hold copyright to be included in the files, and distributed under the above conditions, while retaining their copyright over that material:

Jack HALPERN: The SKIP codes.

Note that the SKIP codes are under their own similar Creative Common licence. See Jack Halpern's conditions of use page. Note that commercial applications using the SKIP codes must have prior permission from Jack Halpern.

Christian WITTERN and Koichi YASUOKA: The Pinyin information.

Urs APP: the Four Corner codes and the Morohashi information.

Mark SPAHN and Wolfgang HADAMITZKY: the kanji descriptors from their dictionary.

Charles MULLER: the Korean readings.

Joseph DE ROO: the De Roo codes.

8. Enquiries

All enquiries to:

The Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group
(Attn: Assoc. Prof. Jim Breen)
Clayton School of Information Technology
Monash University
CLAYTON VIC 3168
AUSTRALIA
(jimbreen@gmail.com)