1. What this Site is
Last updated: August 2026
These Terms and Conditions govern access to and use of strofia.com (the "Site"). The Site is edited by Strofia; the responsible party is identified in the legal notice. By using the Site, you accept these terms.
Strofia is an open library of poetry: it publishes works that are in the public domain, and works by living authors who have given permission for them to appear here. It does not sell content and does not charge for reading it.
No account is needed to read. An account is only needed to comment or to submit your own work, and creating one is optional.
2. Permitted use
The public-domain poems on this Site may be read, copied, printed, recited, recorded and republished without asking anyone's permission, including commercially. That is not a concession by Strofia: it is what the public domain means, and it is the reason the Site exists.
What is asked of you in return:
- Do not present Strofia's editorial texts — the notes, the contexts, the page write-ups — as your own without crediting the source (see section 3).
- Do not reproduce works by living authors published here without that author's permission: those are not in the public domain.
- Do not attempt unauthorised access to any part of the Site, its servers or related systems.
- Do not use automated tools in ways that degrade the service for others. Crawling the Site sensibly is fine; knocking it over is not.
- Do not submit texts you hold no rights to.
3. Intellectual property
Three different things live on this Site, and they are not governed alike:
| What | Whose | What you may do |
|---|---|---|
| Public-domain poems | No one's: everyone's | Anything. Strofia claims no rights over them |
| Works by living authors | Their author's | Whatever that author allows; here they appear with permission |
| Strofia's editorial texts, design and code | Strofia's | Quote and link freely, crediting the source |
The fact that Strofia transcribed, collated or typeset a public-domain poem creates no new right over that poem. Every poem page names the edition its text comes from.
If you believe something here is not in the public domain, or is published without permission, write to us: it comes down while it is checked.
4. Submissions and contact
By sending a text to Strofia, through the contact form or by any other route, you state that you are its author or that the work is in the public domain, and that it may be published here.
If the work is yours, it stays yours: sending it grants Strofia non-exclusive permission to publish it on the Site under your name. You may ask for it to be taken down at any time.
Strofia reviews every submission and may accept it, decline it, or not reply. Sending a text creates no obligation to publish it.
5. Limitation of liability
The Site is provided "as is", without warranties of any kind, express or implied. Strofia takes care over the fidelity of its texts and over naming the edition each one comes from, but does not guarantee that they are free of errors, nor that a work's attribution is settled.
If you find a mistranscribed line, a doubtful attribution, or a work that should not be here, tell us and it gets fixed. That is the only guarantee this Site can honestly give.
Strofia is not liable for direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising from the use of, or inability to use, the Site.
6. Third-party links
This Site links to outside sources — digital libraries, facsimile editions, archives — so you can check where each text comes from. Strofia does not control those sites and accepts no responsibility for their content, privacy policies or practices.
7. Changes to these terms
Strofia may change these Terms at any time. Changes take effect when published on this page, and continued use of the Site after that means you accept them.
8. Applicable law
These Terms are governed by the law of the place of residence of the party responsible for the Site, identified in the legal notice, without prejudice to the mandatory consumer-protection rules of the user's own country.
The public domain is territorial: a work that is free in one country may not be free in another. Strofia publishes works whose author died more than seventy years ago, which satisfies the threshold in most jurisdictions; checking the position where you are is your responsibility if you intend to reuse a work commercially.
For any question about these Terms, use the Site's contact form.