Media library for poems

Here you will find English-language poems for the 21st century, and translations from German into English.

Media library

Selected Poems by Stefan George

Stefan George’s poems haven been repeatedly criticised, but some do have a simple lucidity and naivety that shines. Perhaps one could say, “he talks about his feelings” (and ours). (Der wilde bernd, CC BY-SA 4.0)

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Information on copyright

According to the German Copyright Act (Urheberrechtsgesetz), copying and distributing a text without the consent of the “right holder” is prohibited until 70 years after the death of the author. (A translator is an “author” with regard to his or her translation.)

Public domain texts

On 1 January following the 70th anniversary of the author’s death, the rights to his or her texts become freely available to everyone. Anyone can do whatever they like with such texts. This legal status is called “being in the public domain”.

Copyleft licences

Apart from the two strict legal states„public domain“ or „copyright“, a middle course exists that makes use of copyright law but basically and generally permits certain types of use. The term “copyleft” is often applied to this middle course.

Creative Commons

The licence models created by the “Creative Commons” project (CC) are particularly widely used in this context. The following are two of the most important licences:

Texts published under the “BY-NC-ND” Creative Commons licence (Attribution - Non Commercial - No Derivatives) are not in the public domain and may not be used commercially without the consent of the author.

Texts published under the “BY-SA” Creative Commons licence (Attribution - Share Alike) are also not in the public domain. Provided such a text is attributed to its author, and publication is carried out under the BY-SA licence as well, such a text may be used both non-commercially and commercially, and it may be changed.