SpongeBob Wiki:Copyrights

Everything created by official parties for SpongeBob SquarePants franchise are registered trademarks of Nickelodeon and its associates. With that said, SpongeBob Wiki is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Nickelodeon. SpongeBob Wiki offers no suggestion that the work presented on this website is "official" or produced or sanctioned by the owner of the aforementioned trademarks.

SpongeBob Wiki will take all steps necessary to ensure that any usage of trademarked items in no way confuses the audience of this site as to its origin. SpongeBob Wiki makes no claim to own SpongeBob SquarePants or any of the names related to it. Images that are displayed on this site are copyrighted to Nickelodeon (in the case of screenshots and similar pictures) or to the creator of the image (for fan-made artwork).

Page text
All text contributions to SpongeBob Wiki are made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. By editing the wiki, you consent to having your written work distributed under this license. Anyone is free to use the text content of SpongeBob Wiki in websites, articles, or other publications provided that they adhere to the following guidelines:


 * You must acknowledge the authorship of the original article, and
 * For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work.

If you are simply duplicating a SpongeBob Wiki article, the obligations can be fulfilled by providing a conspicuous direct link back to the SpongeBob Wiki article hosted on this website. If you create a derivative version by changing or adding content, you need to both acknowledge authorship and provide access to the original copy of the text.

Important: The content of this website does not apply to the original works and trademarked names! SpongeBob SquarePants titles and associated names are the sole property of Nickelodeon. The administrators of SpongeBob Wiki believe that the operation of this website falls under the definition of "fair use" under United States copyright laws.

Images and other media
Images that are displayed on SpongeBob Wiki remain the property of their original creators, and are only included on this website for purposes of illustration under fair use guidelines. Unless the original author of the image expressly grants permission, images do not fall under the scope of the Creative Commons license. In all cases, the images must be uploaded to our database, accompanied by a specific note with:
 * Credit for the original author of the image or other media file (if the file is a fan-created work) including a link where the original author may be contacted, or
 * The original source of the image or other media file (if the file is derived from an official SpongeBob SquarePants work, e.g. screenshots and audio clips).

You must also include information about:
 * Whether the file is uploaded to SpongeBob Wiki with express permission of the author, or under fair use rules, and
 * The source of the file, being a specific episode, video game, book, other official work, a website, or any other medium.

Copyrighted works
If you use part of a copyrighted work under fair use, or if you obtain special permission to use a copyrighted work from the copyright holder under the terms of our license, you must make a note of that fact (along with names and dates). It is our goal to be able to freely redistribute as much of SpongeBob Wiki's material as possible (within the limits of copyright law), so original images and sound files licensed under the Creative Commons license or in the public domain are greatly preferred to copyrighted media files used under fair use. Never use materials that infringe the copyrights of others. This could create legal liabilities and seriously hurt the project. If in doubt, write it yourself.

Copyright infringement
It is not the job of rank-and-file members of SpongeBob Wiki to police every article for possible copyright infringement, but if you suspect an issue, please bring it up on the article's talk page. Others can then examine the situation and take action if needed. The most helpful piece of information you can provide is a URL or other reference to what you believe may be the source of the infringing text.

SpongeBob Wiki requests that in the case that the owner or owners of a copyrighted work feel that their work is being illegally infringed upon, they provide a list of all items which they believe are infringing, along with the reasoning behind the belief that those items are infringing, to the site host or an administrator. In addition, please provide the name of a person, along with their email address or mailing address, for follow-up correspondence.