How to Find and Understand Licensing Information

Open access is a core value at Sefaria. We do everything we can to ensure the texts in our library are available with open licenses whenever possible so that users can repurpose and share these resources. This article will explain when and how you can do that, as well as some basic information about the licenses you’ll see in the library. 

While you can use most of the resources on Sefaria for independent projects, some texts have specific licensing requirements. In order to be sure you’re reusing a source with the proper credits, you'll need to check the license or copyright status of the resource in question. 

Please note:

• Each version of a text has its own license. For example, the Tanakh translation by Dr. Everett Fox has a different copyright license than the Tanakh translation published in 2023 by JPS.
• Different languages are considered individual editions of a text, each with individual license details. 

Understanding Reuse Licenses

You’ll see three types of licenses when exploring the library. 

1. Texts in the public domain can be reused without restriction. 
2. Texts with a Creative Commons license may carry requirements to give attribution, share derived work, or limit usage in commercial contexts. 
3. Texts with no noted license have not yet had their copyright status verified by Sefaria.

Checking the Status of a Specific Resource:

1. Click on any passage of text to open the Resource Panel. 
2. Click on About this Text to open a panel with background information about the text in question.
3. Underneath the title, background information, and (when available) date of composition, locate the Current Version subheading.
4. Underneath the details about the current version being displayed, locate information about the source of acquisition. 

Checking the Requirements or Restrictions on a Text With a Creative Commons License: 

1. Click on the CC license link, found next to the word License
2. Read the description on the linked licensing page. 

Please note: 

• If a text requires attribution, this usually means giving credit to the original source of the text, not to Sefaria.
• Proper attribution includes the following information:

• • • Publisher
    • Author (when relevant)
    • Translator (when relevant)
    • Type of license (as noted on Sefaria)

For example: When reading the translation of the book of Exodus published by JPS in 2023, you’ll see the following information under About this Text:

Source: jps.org

License: CC-BY-NC

This indicates that the version in question is free for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons license, and that the user must attribute it to JPS.