Peoria Language and Cultural Content Copyright Notice – Peewaalia Language and Cultural Education

Effective Date: June 3, 2026

Ownership and Authority

The Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma, through its Peoria Language Program and Cultural Preservation Department, holds the copyright, stewardship authority, and all other applicable intellectual property rights in and to the language, cultural, and educational materials created, maintained, or made available through the Peoria Language and Cultural Education Portal, including peewaalia.com and leepwaaminta.peewaalia.com (together, the “Portal”).

This Notice is issued under the inherent sovereign authority of the Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma, applicable tribal law, and the Tribe’s governmental authority to protect Peoria language, Peoria culture, cultural heritage, cultural knowledge, intellectual property, tribal property, and other tribal interests, and it is intended to operate, where relevant, in a manner consistent with any applicable laws of the United States.

For purposes of this Notice, the terms “Peoria language” and “Peoria culture” are used as cover terms for the heritage Indigenous languages, dialects, and cultural lifeways of the people who historically and now are part of the Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma. These languages, dialects, and cultural traditions include, but are not limited to, those associated with the Tribes of the Illinois Confederation (Illinois Nation), and with the Peoria, Kaskaskia, Piankeshaw, and Wea Tribes. Peoria language and Peoria culture are inseparably intertwined, and both are protected together as part of the living heritage of the Peoria Tribe.

Protection of these materials reflects the internationally recognized rights of Indigenous peoples to maintain, control, protect, and develop their cultural heritage, traditional knowledge, traditional cultural expressions, and associated intellectual property, including as recognized in Article 31 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).

Copyright, tribal stewardship authority, cultural protocol, and Indigenous intellectual property rights apply to these materials independently of and in addition to one another. The absence of a copyright symbol on any specific item does not mean it is unprotected or available for unrestricted use.

Access to the Portal and to Protected Materials or any Peoria language and cultural materials or content does not transfer ownership, copyright interests, traditional knowledge rights, publication rights, or any other legal or equitable interest to any user, regardless of the user’s role, level of access, or nature of contribution.

What is protected

The following categories of materials and content are protected (Protected Materials), whether they appear on the Portal in digital, audio, video, text, image, or any other form:

Recordings of any kind, including but not limited to audio and video recordings of oral stories, oral histories, cultural stories, sacred winter stories, cultural narratives, ceremonies, and traditional performances in the Peoria language, English, or other languages.
Written texts, transcriptions, and annotated documents, including but not limited to oral stories, oral histories, cultural stories, sacred winter stories, cultural narratives, dictionaries, word lists, vocabularies, grammars, and linguistic analyses.
Language lessons, curriculum, lesson plans, syllabi, teaching materials, and instructor guides.
Elder knowledge, Elder recordings, Elder-contributed content, and materials reflecting intergenerational cultural transmission.
Community archives, photographs, documents, maps, and digitized historical materials.
Software, applications, databases, websites, compilations, and digital collections in which Peoria language or cultural content is recorded, stored, or organized.
Metadata, provenance records, attribution records, Traditional Knowledge (TK) labels, and access-condition notices attached to any materials.
Cultural stories, including sacred winter stories, and other culturally restricted or protocol-governed materials that are subject to Peoria cultural protocol regardless of their format.
Any other educational or cultural materials designated by the Peoria Tribe as protected, including materials that may not meet the technical requirements of U.S. copyright law but are governed by tribal law, cultural protocol, and Indigenous intellectual property rights.

Who may access and use these materials

Access to and use of the Portal and protected Portal materials is intended for enrolled Peoria citizens, their families, and household members.

The Portal currently includes publicly accessible Protected Materials and content. These materials and content are presently made available by the Peoria Tribe for general educational outreach. Public visitors may read, view, and engage with those materials for limited personal, informational, and noncommercial learning purposes only. Public availability does not transfer ownership, waive copyright, waive Peoria cultural protocol or Traditional Knowledge rights, or authorize copying, reproduction, redistribution, republication, bulk downloading, scraping, data-mining, training or feeding artificial intelligence or machine-learning systems, commercial use, or any other reuse without the prior written authorization of the Peoria Tribe, except where the Tribe expressly states otherwise or where a specific use is permitted by applicable law.

Access to any part of the Portal does not transfer ownership, copyright interests, traditional knowledge rights, publication rights, or any other legal or equitable interest to any user. Authorized users may use protected materials only as follows:

Enrolled Peoria Citizens, their families and household members may use and are encouraged to use the Protected Materials for personal learning, family learning, Peoria citizen community language and cultural revitalization, and participation in Peoria Tribe educational activities.
Peoria Tribe staff, instructors, and program workers may use Protected Materials for legitimate Peoria Tribe work purposes within the scope of their official duties.
Contractors and vendors may use Protected Materials only as strictly necessary to perform an approved and authorized service for the Peoria Tribe under a written agreement or scope of work that includes confidentiality, acceptable-use, and data-protection obligations.

No user may claim independent or group ownership over protected materials based on access, contribution, annotation, digitization, transcription, translation assistance, instructional use, or any other activity unless the Peoria Tribe expressly agrees in writing.

What is prohibited

The following are expressly prohibited without the prior written consent or authorization of the Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma:

Copying, downloading in bulk, reproducing, redistributing, reposting, publishing, or otherwise disseminating protected materials and any Peoria language and cultural materials and content outside the scope of authorized Portal access.
Mass production, mass sharing, or commercial use of any protected materials and any Peoria language and cultural materials.
Uploading or submitting protected materials to social media platforms, public or private websites, outside archives, outside databases, or digital repositories not operated or authorized by the Peoria Tribe.
Using any Portal materials — including but not limited to recordings, text, audio, video, images, word lists, dictionaries, lesson content, cultural stories, metadata, or any other content — to train, fine-tune, feed, test, prompt, evaluate, or otherwise support any artificial intelligence, machine-learning, large language model, or automated system, or to create training datasets, benchmarks, or derivative works for any such system, without the express written authorization of the Peoria Tribe Business Committee.
Using manual or automated tools — including bots, crawlers, scrapers, spiders, bulk downloaders, data-mining tools, or similar technologies — to access, harvest, collect, extract, or copy materials or data from the Portal without express written tribal authorization.
Combining or matching Portal data with outside datasets in a way that profiles, identifies, or produces derivative content using Peoria language or cultural knowledge without express written Peoria Tribe authorization.
Academic publication, research, grant use, or media production using protected materials and any Peoria language and cultural materials without prior written approval by the Peoria Tribe Business Committee.
Using protected materials or any Peoria language and cultural materials for outside teaching, instruction, or educational programs beyond the scope of an individual’s authorized Portal access and participation.
Removing, altering, obscuring, or defacing any watermarks, copyright notices, Traditional Knowledge (TK) labels, protocol notices, provenance statements, metadata, or other access-condition notices attached to or embedded in any protected materials and all other language and cultural materials.
Accessing materials beyond one’s authorized access role or attempting to bypass, circumvent, or defeat technical or administrative access restrictions.

Traditional Knowledge and cultural protocol

Some materials on the Portal carry Traditional Knowledge (TK) labels, cultural protocol notices, restricted-access designations, or other community-specific conditions set by the Peoria Tribe. These labels and notices communicate Peoria-specific rules, cultural responsibilities and obligations, seasonal restrictions, family or clan-level protocols, and other conditions that govern the appropriate use and circulation of the designated materials.

All users are required to respect and follow applicable TK labels and protocol notices. Failure to observe these labels and conditions is a violation of Peoria cultural protocol and may also constitute a violation of this Copyright Notice and applicable tribal policy, regardless of whether a technical copyright claim exists under U.S. law.

Some culturally sensitive materials will not be displayed on the Portal or made available online at all unless such uses are approved by the proper Peoria tribal authorities, consistent with Peoria cultural protocol and Indigenous data sovereignty principles.

Enforcement

Any violation of this Copyright Notice may result in one or more of the following:

Immediate suspension or termination of Portal access.
Removal of the user’s account and course enrollment.
Referral to the appropriate Peoria Tribe office, authority, or legal counsel.
Legal action under tribal law and applicable federal law, including claims for copyright infringement, breach of the Portal Terms of Use and any other applicable claims.

The Peoria Tribe reserves all rights necessary to protect its sovereign interests, citizens, language, cultural heritage, cultural knowledge, archives, educational resources, and digital systems. Enforcement decisions will be made by the Peoria Tribe Business Committee.

Updates to this Notice

The Peoria Tribe may update this Copyright Notice from time to time to reflect changes in law, technology, cultural priorities, program design, or Portal operations. The updated Notice will be posted on the Portal with a revised effective date. Continued use of the Portal after notice of changes constitutes acceptance to the extent allowed by Peoria Tribe law and policy. All updates to this Notice remain governed by the inherent sovereign authority and applicable laws of the Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma and, where relevant, by any applicable laws of the United States.

Permission requests

To request permission to use Peoria language or cultural materials beyond the scope of authorized Portal access — including for academic, research, media, publication, or other purposes — contact the Peoria Cultural Preservation Department in writing:

Robert McCollum, Tribal Administrator

Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma

P.O. Box 1527 Miami, OK 74355

[email protected]

Phone: 918-540-2535

All permission requests must be submitted in writing, must describe the intended use in detail, and are subject to review and approval or denial by the Peoria Tribe Business Committee. Permission is not granted until the Tribe provides express written authorization.

Cross-reference

This Copyright Notice should be read together with the Peoria Language and Cultural Education Portal Terms of Use, the Privacy Notice.