Uncyclopedia:For Reals
Understanding that all of our policies are confusing and only half true, this page is regrettably completely serious. It is my fervent wish that no other page will be created in the spirit of seriousness and truth.
Uncyclopedia is licensed under CC-BY-NC-SA, which stands for "Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial ShareAlike." This is the license all original work falls under by default. This includes all text and all original images that have no license specified. If you object, do not contribute. Once you have pressed "Save page", you have released it.
Copyright Issues[edit source]
Creative Commons[edit source]
Creative Commons is a non-profit organization working to increase the amount of creative work legally available. Under most copyrights, material is the originator's alone; the Creative Commons license means that anyone can copy, distribute, display, and perform the work (and can make derivative works) PROVIDED THAT:
- Attribution
- They give you credit.
- Non-Commercial
- They don't use it for commercial purposes.
- ShareAlike
- They license it under the same license you used.
GFDL[edit source]
Wikipedia and Wikia license under the GFDL. This stands for "GNU Free Documentation License." Uncyclopedia is not licensed under the GFDL.
- What this means
- Uncyclopedia is not bound by the same things Wikipedia is.
We are not operating under the premise that all material is free. The GFDL was designed for manuals and textbooks. Wikipedia and Wikia are similar to those; Uncyclopedia is not.
- Please remember
- If you want to contribute to other wikis, make sure you are familiar with their license. What is okay here is not okay other places.
Fair Use[edit source]
Similarly, what is unacceptable on other wikis and in most contexts is acceptable here. Under United States law (which is where our servers are hosted), copyrighted material may be used if it qualifies under fair use.
In the Copyright Act of 1976 (17 U.S.C. 107), "fair use" is defined:
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include—
- the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
- the nature of the copyrighted work;
- the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
- the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.[1]
For more information, see the Wikipedia article.
- Uncyclopedia is a parody
- Therefore, we may use copyrighted material in order to parody it. We may not crap all over copyright laws as we know them. We do not own the rights to many of our images (and probably some of the text), as well as certain phrases and all that. However, we may parody or satirize them.
Fair use and parody[edit source]
Taken from this version of the Wikipedia page.
Producers or creators of parodies of a copyrighted work have been sued for infringement by the targets of their ridicule, even though such use may be protected as fair use. The fair use cases addressing parodies distinguish between parodies — using a work in order to poke fun or comment on the work itself — and satires — using a work to poke fun or comment on something else. Courts have been more willing to grant fair use protections to parodies than to satires, but the ultimate outcome in either circumstance will turn on the application of the four fair use factors.
In Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. (1994), the Supreme Court recognized parody as a fair use, even when done for profit. Roy Orbison's publisher, Acuff-Rose Music Inc., had sued 2 Live Crew in 1989 for their use of Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman" in a mocking rap version with altered lyrics. The Supreme Court viewed 2 Live Crew's version as a ridiculing commentary on the earlier work, and ruled that when the parody was itself the product rather than used for mere advertising, commercial sale did not bar the defense. The Campbell court also distinguished parodies from satire, which they described as a broader social critique not intrinsically tied to ridicule of a specific work, and so not deserving of the same use exceptions as parody because the satirist's ideas are capable of expression without the use of the other particular work.
In a more recent parody case, Suntrust v. Houghton Mifflin, a suit was brought unsuccessfully against the publication of The Wind Done Gone, which reused many of the characters and situations from Gone with the Wind, but told the events from the point of view of the slaves rather than the slaveholders. The Eleventh Circuit, applying Campbell, recognized that The Wind Done Gone was a protected parody, and vacated the district court's injunction against its publication.
The above text is licensed under the GFDL.
Therefore[edit source]
Our use of material is limited by fair use, and others' use of our material is limited by CC-BY-NC-SA. Once text has been changed, no longer is any single person the copyright holder, but rather every contributor. At no point does a work cease to be copyrighted by its originator. However, it must be used under the license it was released under. The only exception is if each contributor agrees to relicense it. This is much easier if there is only one. In the case of relicensing, the material submitted before is still under the same license.
Public Domain[edit source]
If you choose, you may license your work here (text and/or images) as pubic domain. This means that anyone may do whatever they want to it and with it. Public domain also applies to copyrights which have expired (due to the copyright holder's being deceased for over 100 years most of the time), and to works of the government and such.
Suing Us[edit source]
DMCA[edit source]
If you don't know what this is, don't worry about it. If you do and you'd like to discuss it, contact Wikia's designated agent.
Taking Offense[edit source]
Our general disclaimer is a bit general. This is a proposed disclaimer which has yet to be approved by a good amount of people:
Uncyclopedia may not be appropriate for people of all ages. Content which is inappropriate for younger persons is often labelled as such, however, Uncyclopedia is not responsible for labelling it. Uncyclopedia is not responsible for the ideas it portrays. As a satirical site, the views expressed here more than likely do not align with those of the founders, administrators, and the users of Uncyclopedia. Wikia, Inc. is not to be held responsible for the content which is shown at this site.