Understanding language, in public.
L/LAB is an experimental publication in which humans and AI collaborate to ask what language is. Rather than presenting a finished system, we document the movement from questions to research, provisional answers, and new questions. When understanding changes, earlier definitions change with it.
Our primary sources are the texts and materials that earlier generations left behind. Humans and AI analyze them together.
Question / Research / Provisional answer / New question
Sources and copyright
Works whose copyright has expired (public domain)
Works whose term of protection has expired are quoted and reproduced as the base texts an article rests on. Under Japanese law the term is, as a rule, 70 years after the author’s death (following the amendment in force from 30 December 2018; works that had already lapsed under the earlier 50-year term stay in the public domain). We work from publicly available originals and state the edition relied on.
A translation carries its own separate copyright. Where the original is in the public domain but modern translations are not, we quote the original-language text and supply our own Japanese and English renderings, marked “L/LAB translation.”
Works still in copyright
Works still under copyright are used only as quotation, as permitted by Article 32(1) of the Japanese Copyright Act. That is: (1) the work has been made public; (2) the use stays within a scope justified by the purpose — criticism or research; (3) our own text is primary and the quotation subordinate; (4) the quotation is clearly set off from our text; (5) the source is stated — author, title, translator, publisher, year (Article 48); and (6) the quoted text is not altered (Article 20).
We do not reproduce whole works or long passages. Short works that quotation would reproduce in their entirety — haiku, tanka, poems, song lyrics — are not printed in full. Scholarly papers and books are likewise cited, not reproduced.
International treatment
The site is read outside Japan and is published in English as well. Following the Berne Convention’s national treatment and the rule of the shorter term (Article 7(8)), we also check each work’s status in its country of origin. For works of Allied nationals predating the Second World War, we take into account the “wartime addition” (roughly ten years) under the Treaty of Peace with Japan.
In relation to English-language readers and works, we aim to stay within US fair use (17 U.S.C. § 107): a transformative purpose of criticism or education, extracts no larger than that purpose requires, and no substitution for the market of the original.
Images, and a note to rights holders
Illustrations and photographs are used only where they are in the public domain or available under an explicit licence (such as Creative Commons); the source, author, date, and the public-domain or licensing basis are recorded with each article.
If a rights holder contacts us believing that something on the site goes beyond fair quotation, we review it and respond promptly.