StarfinderWiki:Community Use Policy
Paizo Inc. Community Use Policy
Last updated January 30, 2014
Reprinted from paizo.com/paizo/about/communityuse
Applicable to Non-Commercial Activity
The Paizo Inc. community is an intelligent, creative, dedicated, and enthusiastic group of people, and we at Paizo appreciate and value the contributions of our community members. This Community Use Policy is designed to encourage you to spread your enthusiasm and creativity while respecting ownership of our copyrights, trademarks, and other intellectual properties.
While copyright and trademark laws protect our property, they also prevent you from using our intellectual properties in most circumstances. That means that you are generally prohibited from using any of our logos, images, or other trademarks or copyrighted content without our consent. This policy grants you the consent to use some of our intellectual property under certain circumstances.
This policy authorizes certain non-commercial use of the Paizo-related material specifically identified in the Permissions section of this policy ("Paizo Material").
When we say "non-commercial," we mean you cannot sell or otherwise charge anyone for access to content used under this Policy. If you make any commercial use of Paizo Material, your rights under this Policy will be automatically terminated, and any permission granted by this Policy will be immediately revoked. If Paizo believes that you are in the publishing business, you are considered to be a commercial user, and you are not granted any right to use any Paizo Material under this Policy. (Commercial users may be able to take advantage of our Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Compatibility License. Commercial users may also be able to use or license certain Paizo Material outside of this Policy and the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Compatibility License with our express written consent. If you are interested in securing permission or a license, please contact us at licensing@paizo.com.)
Usage Requirements
- To use Paizo Material under this Policy you must include the following notice in plainly legible and accessible form in each product or on each website that uses any Paizo Material:
- "This [website, character sheet, or whatever it is] uses trademarks and/or copyrights owned by Paizo Inc., which are used under Paizo's Community Use Policy. We are expressly prohibited from charging you to use or access this content. This [website, character sheet, or whatever it is] is not published, endorsed, or specifically approved by Paizo Inc. For more information about Paizo's Community Use Policy, please visit paizo.com/communityuse. For more information about Paizo Inc. and Paizo products, please visit paizo.com."
- By using content under this Policy, you agree to not use any material in a way that suggests Paizo endorses or is in any way responsible for anything you create, or that suggests that you have any other relationship with Paizo, unless we have a separate written agreement that lets you do so. You agree to not use Paizo's trade dress—that is, you may not make your material look like ours. You agree that such use could irreparably harm Paizo.
- You agree to use your best efforts to preserve the high standard of our intellectual property. You agree to present Paizo, our products, and the Paizo Material in a generally positive light. You agree to not use this permission for material that the general public would classify as "adult content," offensive, or inappropriate for minors, and you agree that such use would irreparably harm Paizo. You agree to not do anything illegal in or with products or websites produced under this Policy.
- You agree to create an account on paizo.com and add an entry describing your material on our Community Use Registry at paizo.com/communityuse/registry, with links where appropriate. You agree to endeavor to keep this information up-to-date.
Permissions
As long as you comply with all of the above usage requirements, we hereby grant you the following permissions:
- You may use the contents of the Community Use Package at paizo.com/communityuse/package. You may use only those versions of the Paizo Materials from the Community Use Package. You may not alter the color, typography, design, or proportions of the logos or icons, or otherwise modify them. Should an item be removed from the Community Use Package, you don't need to remove it from existing projects, but you may not use it in future projects.
- You may use the cover images, as displayed on paizo.com, of all of the products on our Community Use Approved Product List at paizo.com/communityuse/products. Product covers may not be cropped, color adjusted, edited, distorted, or modified.
- You may use the textual product descriptions, as they appear on the back of each product or in the product listings on paizo.com, of all of the products on our Community Use Approved Product List at paizo.com/communityuse/products.
- You may use any of the text or artwork published in the Paizo Blog at paizo.com/paizo/blog, with the exception of excerpts of Planet Stories publications, Pathfinder Comics, and any logos and icons that aren't also in the Community Use Package. You may not use any photographs published in the blog (because those rights are usually not ours to offer). You may not use artwork, including maps, that have not been published in the blog, although you may create your own interpretations of material presented in our artwork and maps, provided that your interpretations don't look substantially similar to our materials.
- You may use the artwork published to illustrate the Web Fiction at paizo.com/pathfinder/tales/serial. Note that the web fiction itself may not be used under this policy—just the artwork.
- You may descriptively reference trademarks, proper names (characters, deities, artifacts, places, etc.), locations and characters from products listed in Section 1 of our Community Use Approved Product List at paizo.com/communityuse/products, provided it is clear that these are our marks.
- You may descriptively reference dialogue, plots, storylines, language, and incidents from products listed in Section 1 of our Community Use Approved Product List at paizo.com/communityuse/products in campaign journals and play-by-post or play-by-email games.
The permissions granted under this Policy are personal to you and may not be assigned or transferred without our consent. Please do not hotlink to images on our website, as we may move those images (thus breaking your links) at any time.
This policy in no way alters Paizo's ownership of any of our intellectual property and we reserve the right to amend, modify or terminate this Policy at any time. We will post revisions to this Policy on our website, so check back frequently to make sure you have the most current version.