Terms of Service

ScholaThomistica is a digital library of public-domain scholastic theological texts, supported by reader-submitted corrections and transcriptions. Reading is free and requires no account. Contributing requires a registered account and approval as a contributor.

The operator is Julio Alonzo Müller (see the Imprint for details). By using the platform you accept these Terms.

You may create an account only if you are at least 16 years old and legally able to agree to these Terms.

You must provide an accurate email address and keep your password confidential. You are responsible for actions taken from your account. One account per person.

You can ask us to close and anonymize your account at any time by writing to contact@scholathomistica.com. Contributions you’ve already made remain in the corpus under the license below; we sever the link between them and your identity.

When using the platform, you agree not to:

• submit contributions in violation of the source policy or the contributor warranty below;
• submit abusive, malicious, or deliberately false corrections;
• attempt to disrupt the service, bypass rate limits, or access accounts or data that are not yours;
• use the platform in violation of applicable law.

ScholaThomistica is intended to host public-domain scholastic texts and openly licensed contributions.

Each canonical text should identify its source edition, manuscript scan, or other source material where reasonably possible. We prefer public-domain print editions and scans. Modern scholarly editions, translations, introductions, critical apparatus, footnotes, and proprietary databases may not be uploaded, copied, or used as base texts unless they are explicitly licensed for republication under terms compatible with these Terms, or unless written permission has been obtained.

Corrections should be made against the identified public-domain or openly licensed source. Modern copyrighted editions may be consulted for private research, but their protected editorial text, apparatus, translation, or distinctive editorial choices must not be copied into the corpus.

If you are submitting a translation, the same rule applies: a modern copyrighted translation may not be used as the basis for your own, even if rephrased.

We are working to make source identification universal as the platform matures; sections imported before this rule was in place may not yet carry a source link.

This is the most important clause in these Terms. Please read it carefully.

When you submit a contribution, including a transcription, OCR correction, translation, note, metadata, source correction, or other content, you warrant that:

1. the contribution is your own original work; or
2. the contribution is derived only from material that is in the public domain; or
3. the contribution is derived from material that is explicitly licensed for republication under terms compatible with these Terms.

You must not submit or base corrections on modern copyrighted editions, translations, critical apparatus, footnotes, introductions, proprietary databases, or other protected material unless that material is explicitly licensed for republication under terms compatible with these Terms, or unless you have written permission and disclose it to us.

You grant ScholaThomistica and its successors a perpetual, worldwide, irrevocable, royalty-free, sublicensable license to host, store, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, distribute, and display your contribution; to include it in the open corpus under the terms below; and to use it, together with associated page scans and metadata where applicable, to train, evaluate, and publish machine-learning and OCR models.

You dedicate your contribution to the public domain under Creative Commons Zero 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) where that is legally possible in your jurisdiction. Where a full public-domain dedication is not enforceable, you grant everyone a perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, irrevocable license to use, copy, modify, adapt, publish, translate, distribute, display, and build upon your contribution for any purpose, including commercial and non-commercial purposes, without requiring attribution.

You acknowledge that moral rights may remain under local law. To the maximum extent permitted by law, you waive the right to assert moral rights against good-faith use of your contribution by ScholaThomistica, its users, and downstream users of the corpus.

You acknowledge that ScholaThomistica may, in the future, offer paid tools and services built on top of the corpus, such as semantic search, AI-assisted reading, or editorial tools. Access to the public-domain source texts themselves will remain free.

This license applies to any contribution you submit, whether or not it is approved by an admin. Rejected contributions are not published but may be retained internally for moderation, audit, abuse prevention, and quality-control purposes.

All contributions are reviewed by an admin before they change the canonical text. Admins may approve, reject, or request changes. The decision and any reviewer note are visible to the contributor.

We may warn, temporarily suspend, or permanently ban accounts that repeatedly violate these Terms.

If you believe content hosted on the platform infringes your rights, write to contact@scholathomistica.com with:

• a link or clear description of the disputed content;
• the basis of your claim;
• your contact information.

We review claims in good faith and remove or disable disputed content while the review is in progress where the claim appears substantiated.

The platform is provided as is, without warranty of any kind. We do our best to preserve textual accuracy and integrity, but you should verify critical citations against authoritative print editions.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, ScholaThomistica and its operator are not liable for any indirect, incidental, or consequential damages arising from your use of the platform.

We may update these Terms from time to time. Material changes will be announced to registered users by email. The Last updated date above reflects the current version.

Changes do not retroactively alter the license you granted on past contributions — that license is irrevocable by design, so the corpus can remain open regardless of policy changes.

These Terms are governed by the law of the jurisdiction in which the operator is resident (see the Imprint). Mandatory consumer protections in your country of residence continue to apply.