Canadian War Veterans Memorial Project – Fair Use & Data Licensing Policy

Who owns the images on CWVMP?

Images remain the property of the original contributors or are public domain. By uploading, contributors agree that images can be used under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 license — meaning you can share them for research and commemoration as long as you credit the source and don’t use them commercially.

1. Purpose

The Canadian War Veterans Memorial Project (CWVMP) exists to honor and document Canadians who served in military conflicts since 1914. The data on this site is compiled from public records and community contributions. Our goal is to make this information freely available for commemoration, education, and non-commercial research, while protecting the integrity of contributors’ work from unauthorized commercial reuse.

2. Our Principles

• Free access for the public good – All visitors may browse, search, and view records freely.
• Attribution matters – When using data or images from CWVMP, please credit the source (e.g., “Data from the Canadian War Veterans Memorial Project, cwvmp.ca”).
• Community ownership – The database is the result of thousands of volunteer contributions. Respecting those contributions means maintaining open access and transparency.
• No commercial exploitation – Data from CWVMP may not be copied, redistributed, or resold for commercial purposes (including paywalled genealogy or data-mining platforms) without explicit written permission.

3. License Summary

All original content and crowd-sourced data on this site are licensed under:
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

That means you are free to:

• Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
• Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material

Under the following terms:

• Attribution — You must give appropriate credit (“Canadian War Veterans Memorial Project, cwvmp.ca”), provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made.
• NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
• ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.

👉 Full license text on creativecommons.org

4. Permitted Uses

• Academic research or student projects.
• Non-profit historical or genealogical societies.
• Public commemoration projects (e.g., museums, schools, memorial displays).
• Personal family-history websites that are freely accessible (not monetized).
• News articles or blog posts quoting or excerpting limited data with attribution.

5. Restricted Uses

• Commercial re-publication of data (including paywalled databases, subscription genealogy platforms, or data resale).
• Automated harvesting (“scraping”) of the site for large-scale reuse without permission.
• Use of the data in machine-learning datasets or commercial AI products.
• Rehosting entire collections without attribution or link-back.

If your organization wants to use the data in a for-profit context, please contact the CWVMP administrators using the site contact form to discuss a separate license or data-sharing agreement.

6. Data Exports

We plan to make data export tools (CSV/JSON) available to researchers. By downloading or using exported data, you agree to the same CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and to include the following citation wherever the data is reproduced:

“Data courtesy of the Canadian War Veterans Memorial Project (cwvmp.ca).
Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International.”

7. External Sources

Some content on CWVMP (such as photographs or scans from LAC, VAC, or CVWM) may have their own licensing or reproduction rules. Those materials retain their original rights; please check the linked source for specific conditions.

8. Contributor Rights

By contributing content (text, data, images, or documents) to CWVMP, you grant the Project a non-exclusive, perpetual license to display, reproduce, and redistribute your contribution under the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license. You retain full ownership and may reuse your material elsewhere.

9. Contact

For questions about licensing, data reuse, or partnerships, please contact the CWVMP administrators using the site contact form.

This site is governed by Canadian copyright law. Hosting services are provided in the United States, and data is processed there for operational reasons.