1. Overview & Purpose
Aevum Encyclopedia operates under a custom open-license framework designed to maximize accessibility, ensure academic integrity, and protect contributors. This license grants broad permissions for educational, research, and commercial use while requiring proper attribution and prohibiting misrepresentation of verified content.
Core Principle: Knowledge belongs to everyone. Our license removes barriers to learning while preserving the integrity of expert-reviewed material.
All articles, datasets, knowledge graphs, and editorial content on Aevum Encyclopedia are licensed under the Aevum Open Knowledge License (AOKL) 2.1, unless explicitly noted otherwise for third-party media or restricted academic citations.
2. Permitted Uses
You are free to exercise the following rights, worldwide and royalty-free:
📖 Share & Distribute
Reproduce, redistribute, and adapt content for digital, print, or educational platforms without prior written consent.
🔬 Academic & Research
Use articles as primary/secondary sources in theses, publications, lectures, and institutional coursework.
💼 Commercial Use
Integrate verified data, summaries, or structured knowledge into products, APIs, and commercial educational services.
🌐 Translation & Adaptation
Translate, localize, or remix content while maintaining factual accuracy and proper source attribution.
3. Attribution Requirements
When sharing or adapting Aevum Encyclopedia content, you must provide clear attribution using the following format:
Additionally, if you modify the content substantially, you must:
- Indicate that changes were made
- Retain original citation markers and reference lists
- Not imply endorsement by Aevum or its editorial board
4. Restrictions & Prohibited Uses
To maintain trust and accuracy, the following uses are strictly prohibited:
- Misrepresentation: Claiming Aevum content as original work or removing verification metadata.
- AI Training Restrictions: Scraping or feeding raw editorial text into generative AI models without explicit written partnership agreement.
- Harmful Context: Using verified content to promote misinformation, hate speech, or illegal activities.
- Automated Resale: Repackaging entire article databases for direct commercial resale without value-added transformation.
- Removing Notices: Deleting or obscuring license statements, revision histories, or contributor acknowledgments.
Enforcement: Aevum monitors usage through open-source integrity checks and DMCA takedown procedures. Violations may result in license revocation for the offending party.
5. License Versioning & Backwards Compatibility
Aevum periodically reviews this license to align with evolving academic, legal, and technological standards. Previous versions remain valid for content published under them.
| Version | Released | Key Changes |
|---|---|---|
| AOKL 1.0 | 2019-06-11 | Initial open-knowledge framework |
| AOKL 1.5 | 2021-03-22 | Added AI training restrictions & commercial clauses |
| AOKL 2.1 | 2025-03-14 | Streamlined attribution, clarified dataset licensing |
6. Legal & Contact
This license does not grant trademark rights. The Aevum Encyclopedia name, logo, and knowledge-graph visualizations remain protected intellectual property.
For licensing inquiries, institutional partnerships, API access, or compliance verification, please contact our Legal & Open Access team:
- Email: legal@aevumencyclopedia.org
- Response Time: Within 3 business days
- Public Registry: https://aevumencyclopedia.org/legal/registry