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Terms & Licensing

How to use Source Library

Want to use text from Source Library? Go for it! Here are the only limitations, and reach out if they are too limiting.

Effective date: November 8, 2026 · Operated by Stichting Het Wereldhart (Embassy of the Free Mind), Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Source Library was created by Derek Lomas, who chose its books and set how they are read, translated and connected.

The limitations

  1. Credit us. Name Source Library and link to the page you used.
  2. Share alike. If you publish an adapted version, offer it on these same terms.
  3. Ask first if our text is what you are selling. Quoting it inside your own commercial work is fine.
  4. You need a license from us to train a commercial AI model on it, or to copy a large part of the library. Without one, you do not have permission.

To ask, write to [email protected] and say what you want to do. We often say yes for free. For licenses and rates, see AI & Data Licensing.

Examples

A use is commercial if it is mainly meant to make money or gain a business advantage. What counts is the use, not who you are.

  • Reading, searching, studying, and quoting with a linkGo for it
  • Teaching, including handouts for a course at a school or universityGo for it
  • Research, theses, papers, and academic books that quote and citeGo for it
  • Sharing a text with friends, a reading group, a free blog, or social mediaGo for it
  • Quoting a passage in commercial work: a book, article, podcast, paid course or product, where our text is not the main thing being soldGo for it
  • An assistant fetching a page because a person asked it toGo for it
  • Non-profit academic research that uses AI or mines the textGo for it
  • Selling a book, course, app or membership where our text is the main thing people pay forAsk us
  • Training, fine-tuning or evaluating an AI model for a commercial productLicense needed
  • Copying a collection or a large part of the libraryLicense needed

Not on the list? Ask. Nothing here limits what the law already lets you do, such as quoting or research under a statutory exception.

What licence applies to what

Original texts
Public domain. We claim nothing in them.
Page images
The holding library’s terms apply, and each book shows them. We grant nothing in the scans.
Our transcriptions, translations, summaries, indexes and image descriptions
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, plus the extra permission on this page.
Text taken from another open source
Keeps that source’s licence.
Published editions with their own DOI
The licence stated on the edition.
Essays and notes written by people
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 unless the page says otherwise.
The library as a whole
One creative work: its selection and arrangement of books, and how they are read, translated and connected. All rights in the whole are reserved, including copyright in the compilation and database rights.
Software
AGPL-3.0-or-later.

The licence is CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. The commercial quoting allowed above is an extra permission from us on top of it.

Earlier copies. Until November 5, 2026 we offered this text under CC BY-SA 4.0. Copies obtained under that licence stay under it. From that date we offer the text on these terms. A signed agreement with us takes priority over this page.

These terms also set the conditions for using this site and our API.

API, MCP server and automated access

Programs should use our REST API or MCP server, within the posted limits, rather than scraping the website. Search engines and assistants reading on a person’s behalf are welcome.

A free API key is for a person studying, teaching, writing or doing non-profit research. You agree to these terms when you create a key or keep using one:

  • One person, one key. Do not share or publish your key. An organisation, a product or a service that many people use asks us for a key of its own.
  • Limits. Stay within the posted limits. Do not get around them with more accounts, keys or addresses.
  • Bulk copying. Quote, cite and work with what you read. Do not republish, redistribute or sell our text in bulk, or build a mirror or dataset of a collection or a large part of the library, without written permission.
  • AI training. Training, fine-tuning or evaluating an AI model for a commercial product needs a licence.
  • Credit. Credit Source Library, and link to the page, when you use our transcriptions or translations.
  • The Embassy’s collection. Its books also carry the terms below.
  • Suspension. We may suspend or revoke a key that breaks these terms or strains the service. Where we can, we write to you first.
  • What we keep. When you agree, we record the date and these terms’ version on your key. For each call we log the time, the route, the pages served, your client’s description of itself and a hash of your network address, not the address.

We reserve commercial text and data mining under Article 4 of EU Directive 2019/790, in machine-readable form: /.well-known/tdmrep.json, the TDM-Reservation header and robots.txt. We may rate-limit or block automated traffic that strains the service or ignores these limits.

Version 2026-11-08.

The Embassy of the Free Mind’s Collection

Books from the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica, held by the Embassy of the Free Mind in Amsterdam, are shown here in partnership with the Embassy. You are asked to agree to these terms before downloading one. You also agree to them when you create an API key, or when you run a program that downloads from this collection.

  • What you may do: read, study, teach from and quote these books, with credit to the Embassy of the Free Mind and Source Library.
  • Bulk copying: you may not download or scrape the collection, or a substantial part of it, by automated means without written permission.
  • AI training: you may not use the collection to train AI models without a licence. See licensing.
  • What a file allows: a licence stated on a file you have downloaded continues to apply to that file. These terms govern how you get it.
  • What we keep: when you agree, we record the date, these terms’ version, the book and format, your account if you are signed in, your browser’s description of itself, and a hash of your network address, not the address.

Version 2026-11-04.

Reading the library

If you open a page of a book directly, without following a link or a citation, we ask you once to agree to these terms. You agree by ticking the box and continuing.

  • What you may do: read, study, teach from and quote the library, as set out at the top of this page.
  • Bulk copying: you may not copy the library, a collection or a large part of either by automated means without written permission. Non-profit academic research can use our API within the posted limits.
  • AI training: training, fine-tuning or evaluating an AI model for a commercial product needs a licence.
  • What we keep: when you agree, we record the date, these terms’ version, the page, your browser’s description of itself, and a hash of your network address, not the address. A cookie remembers your answer for a year.

Version 2026-11-06.

Your contributions

If you send corrections, reviews or other contributions, you keep your rights in them and give us a free, non-exclusive, worldwide licence to publish, adapt and license them as part of the library, including under commercial agreements.

Purchases and donations

The price and what you receive are shown before you pay. If you are a consumer, the rights consumer law gives you are not affected.

Acceptable use

  • Do not interfere with the service or get around its limits.
  • Do not remove attribution from what you redistribute.

Disclaimer

The service is provided as is. Translations may contain errors, so check them against the original before relying on them. This does not limit liability that the law does not allow us to limit.

Changes

We may update these terms. We change the effective date above, and tell you directly about significant changes where we can. Changes apply to use after that date.

Governing law

Dutch law applies, and disputes go to the courts of Amsterdam. If you are a consumer, you keep the protections and the right to go to court that the law of your home country gives you.

Contact

Questions, permission requests, or a concern about something on the site: [email protected]