Go to top

The purpose of Masticationpedia is to create a freely available source of specialist information. The license we use guarantees free access to our content, in the same sense in which free software can be used freely. This means that the content of Masticationpedia can be copied, modified and redistributed, as long as the new version guarantees the same freedom to others and recognizes the work of the authors of the Masticationpedia pages used (a direct link to the page satisfies the attribution of authorship that we request to protect the authors' work). Masticationpedia's pages will therefore remain free forever and can be used by anyone under certain conditions, most of which are used to guarantee this freedom.

Terms of use

These site conditions cannot be changed or modified.

Information for text contributors

In order to increase the public availability of free knowledge and free culture, all users who contribute to Masticationpedia are required to give the public ample opportunity to redistribute and reuse their contributions freely, as long as the authorship of the work is attributed to the original authors and as long as the same freedom of redistribution and reuse is also guaranteed for derivative works. So, speaking about the text of which you own the copyright, when you save it in a page of Masticationpedia you consent to publish it with a Creative Commons Attribution-Share alike 4.0 Unported license. Note that this license allows commercial uses of your contributions, as long as those uses meet the conditions.

As an author, you agree that your contributions are attributed to you in any of the following ways:

  1. a hyperlink (where possible) or a URL to the page or pages you contributed to,
  2. a hyperlink (where possible) or a URL to a freely accessible alternative and stable online copy, which conforms to the license and which attributes authorship to the authors in a manner equivalent to the attribution provided by this site, or
  3. a list of all authors (lists of authors can be filtered to exclude minimal or irrelevant contributions).

Importing text

If you want to import into Masticationpedia text that you have found elsewhere or that you have authored together with others, you can only do so if it is available under conditions compatible with the CC BY-SA license.

If you import published text with a compatible license that requires attribution, you must recognize authorship appropriately. Where such authorship is commonly attributed through the chronologies of the pages (as in the case of transfers of internal texts within Masticationpedia), it is sufficient to specify their attribution in the subject of the modification, which is reported in the chronology, when the text is imported. Regardless of the license, the text you import can be rejected if the requested attribution is considered too intrusive.

Information for re-users

The Charity owns nothing of the content of the Masticationpedia sites, which instead belongs to their respective individual authors. Almost everything can be freely reused without asking the authors's permission, as long as the terms of use enshrined in the particular license (or licenses) with which the authors has published his work, are respected. You therefore do not need to obtain a specific authorization declaration from the licensee (unless you want to use the work according to terms of use different from those set by the user license).

Although the copyright information and terms of reuse for each individual file is indicated as accurately as possible, the Masticationpedia Charity makes no warranties, expressed or implied, about the copyright status or the correctness of the license terms. If you decide to reuse files from Wikimedia Commons, you must conduct your own independent analysis on that site to determine the copyright status and applicable laws of each file, just like any time you want to reuse a file found in other sources.

Please also note that restrictions other than copyright may apply. These may include restrictions on registered trademarks, patents, image rights, moral rights, privacy rights, or any other of the many legal restrictions which are independent of copyright status and which vary, sometimes greatly, from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

You can therefore reuse the content of Masticationpedia freely, except for the content used according to fair use (see below), the right to a short quotation, and similar copyright exceptions. Follow the guidelines below.

Reuse of text:

  • Attribution. To redistribute a page in any form, attribute authorship to the authors, including:
  1. a hyperlink (where possible) or a URL to the page or pages you are reusing, or
  2. a hyperlink (where possible) or a URL to a freely accessible alternative and stable online copy, which conforms to the license and which attributes authorship to the authors in a manner equivalent to the attribution provided by this site, or
  3. a list of all authors (lists of authors can be filtered to exclude minimal or irrelevant contributions).
The attribution methods indicated above apply to content developed and published by the Masticationpedia community. Texts from sources external to this may require additional attribution methods, which will be the care of those who use them to trace and clearly indicate. For example, a page may have a notice indicating that part or all of its content was originally published elsewhere; this information, where visible on the page itself, should generally be kept by re-users.

  • Copyleft / Share and Share alike. If you make changes or additions to the page or work you reuse, you must publish them under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share license in the same way 4.0 or later.
  • Indicate the changes. If you make changes or additions, you must adequately indicate that the original work has been edited. If you are reusing the page in a wiki, for example, simply report it in the subject field, so that it appears in the chronology.
  • License notice. Each copy or modified version you distribute must include a statement that the work is published under the CC BY-SA license and
    a hyperlink or URL to the license text or
    a copy of the license. For this purpose, a suitable URL is: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.it
  • For more information, refer to the legal code of the CC BY-SA license.

Reuse of non-textual content:

  • Unless otherwise noted, non-textual content is available under different free licenses. Click on the file to open its description page, which details the license.

Details on reusing content outside of Masticationpedia

You can consult the dedicated help page on Commons in this regard. Fair use material and special requirements

The Masticationpedia pages may include images, sounds or citations of texts under the "fair use" doctrine provided for by US copyright law.

In this case, the material must be identified as coming from an external source (on the image description page, or in the page history, as appropriate). Since fair use is invoked for the specific use that is made by the contributor, it is best to include a description of fair reasonable use by indicating the specific use either in a hidden part of the text or on the description page of the image. In practice, explain why it is legitimate to invoke fair use for that content.

It is good to remember that what Masticationpedia defines fair use may not be considered in the same way in another context. For example, if we have included an image under fair use, it is necessary to ensure that the use that will be made of the item also falls under fair use (it may not include the case in which, for example, you are using a Masticationpedia page for commercial purposes, what is allowed by CC BY-SA, but not necessarily by fair use).

Using copyrighted work

If you use a part of a copyrighted work invoking the principle of "fair use" (legal doctrine recognized in the USA, but not, for example, in Italy), or if you get a special permission to use a copyrighted work by the holder permission under the terms of our license, you must add a note about it (including names and dates).

It is our goal to redistribute as much Masticationpedia material as possible, so original images and sound files licensed under CC BY-SA or in the public domain are far preferable to copyrighted multimedia content or fair use.

More about contributors' rights and obligations

If you contribute material to Masticationpedia, you are required to license it under the CC BY-SA license as explained above. In order to contribute, you must therefore be in a position that allows you to secure these licenses, which means one of two cases:

  • you own the copyright on the material, for example because you produced it yourself, or
  • you acquired the material from a source that allows you to license it under CC BY-SA, for example because the material is in the public domain or is already published under CC BY-SA (or a compatible license).

NEVER use material that violates the copyrights of others

Using material that violates the copyrights of others could give rise to legal liability (which would remain in the hands of the person who committed the infringement) and seriously damage the project.

Warning: copyright is recognized in its original title[1] and therefore does not need to be specified from time to time: when you find material without indications on the license with which it is published, it must be assumed that it is covered by copyright.
Only if the material is accompanied by a "public domain" or CC BY-SA license indication will you are allowed to reuse it in Masticationpedia.

If you have any doubts, make the text yourself, writing it in your own hand, or take a photograph yourself, instead of using third party material.

Note that copyright controls the creative expression of ideas, not the idea or the information itself. For this reason, it is perfectly legal to read a text on a page or another type of work, to rephrase it in one's own words and to publish it on Masticationpedia[2].

Translations and copyrights

Both translations of a text and the ability to translate a text are subject to copyright law.

CASE A: work in the original language in the public domain

  • If the translator died more than 70 years ago, the translation is generally included in the public domain (PD)[3], but a more recent translation of a text in the public domain is under copyright of the author of the translation. Unless the translator expressly releases it under a CC BY-SA (or compatible) license, or in PD, it is not possible to use his work in Masticationpedia, but it is still possible to:
  • Cite a part, but the quote must be highlighted (with quotation marks or with the use of the Template: Tl template), short, functional to the context and contain precise references to the author and works.
  • Insert a link to an external website that contains the translation as specified in the section below: Links with copyrighted content.

CASE B: work in original language under copyright

  • Copyrighted text can only be translated following authorization by the author or the copyright holder. The translator does not have the right to otherwise re-license the work. This means that a translation of a copyrighted text (made by a Masticationpedia user or by a third party) cannot be used in Masticationpedia, but it is still possible to quote it or insert an external link in the terms indicated in the previous case.

Links to copyrighted content

In some cases it is allowed to insert external links to pages of other websites covered by copyright, but it is advisable to check that these do not infringe the rights of third parties. If this were the case, no link should be entered. In fact, if a site linked by us violates the rights, sooner or later it will be called to answer it in court and in any case to link our page to sites that illegally distribute the work of others, damages the image and prestige of Masticationpedia, except for any different and more damage.

It should also be kept in mind that some sites do not like to receive links (in general or only to specific pages)[4]; always check before inserting external links.

If you find a copyright infringement

Analyzing each page in search of possible copyright infringements is not the most typical part of the work of Masticationpedia users (who deal with sorting and classifying information) but, if you think you have found such a page, you should at least raise the question on the talk page connected to it and on the relevant page. Other users (especially administrators) can then review the situation and take the necessary action.

When you find a copyright infringement:
If you find a copyright infringement, this infringement can be partial or total.
  • If the violation is total (i.e. the content of the latest and/or previous versions in full violates the copyright rules), delete everything and insert the template
<noinclude>{{speedy delete|13|source}}</noinclude>
specifying the original source of the copyright infringement.
  • If the violation is partial (ie only some parts and/or some revisions infringe copyright), delete all the "offending" content and ask for the cleaning of the history, not the immediate cancellation.
After recovery you need to check the cleanliness of the page's history.

The most useful information that can be provided in this case is the URL or another reference that leads to what is believed to be the source from which the information contained in the text originates.

When the whole page is made up only of material in violation of copyright, it must be deleted immediately; to report this problem to the administrators, obscure the copied text and insert the template speedy delete indicating the original source (the syntax is {{speedy delete|13|source}}).

Some cases turn out to be false alarms. For example, if the contributor was in fact the author of the text already published elsewhere under different license terms, this does not interfere with his right to publish the same text here (although here he can only insert it under CC BY-SA). Likewise, text copied from Masticationpedia can be found around the web. In both cases it is a good idea to leave a comment on the discussion page of the page (and warn the user who has entered the suspicious contribution) to discourage the spread of false alarms in the future.

If the content of a page is suspected of copyright infringement (in whole or in part), the page must be added to the list published on the dedicated service page and the part of the page suspected of infringement must be obscured. If the suspected violation is not clarified (or confirmed), all revisions of the page containing the violation will be canceled. If later the authorization is obtained from the author, the text can be retrieved and added to the page.

Always notify the infringer. In extreme cases of contributors who persist in posting copyrighted material after repeated warnings, these users may be excluded from the contribution in order to safeguard the Masticationpedia project.

If you are the owner of the rights about material present on Masticationpedia

If you are the owner of the material rights present on Masticationpedia without your permission, you can request that the part be removed by following all the instructions contained in Masticationpedia: Suspected copyright infringements, and bringing a minimum of documentation to support this type of request.

Waiting for an administrator to act on the page history to permanently remove the violation (procedure that may take some time) you can manually delete the copied text. If you allow the use of the material present on your site or other sources

    See the brochure on the benefits of a copyleft license. Banning commercial uses only hurts you!

You can offer free licensed material to Masticationpedia and resolve any copyright issues if:

Yes check.svg
you are the only author / holder of content rights; or
Yes check.svg
you can send us the written authorization from the author / rights holder

and if

Yes check.svg
you have read and understood the essential concepts behind the Masticationpedia project. This is necessary because the procedure only heals any anomalous copyright situations: we do not approve texts before their publication and there is no guarantee that the material will actually be used, especially if it violates other design rules.

Reusing the text

If you create a derivative version by changing or adding content, this necessarily implies that:

  1. your material must be published with CC BY-SA license,
  2. you must recognize the authorship of the voice, and
  3. you must provide access to the "transparent copy" of the material; "transparent copy" of a Masticationpedia entry means any format of the page that is made available on the Masticationpedia website, that is, the text of the entry in wiki format, html pages, XML feeds, etc.

If you want to use the Masticationpedia material on a website, the last two obligations written above can be fulfilled by including a link to the Masticationpedia page found on this site (it.Masticationpedia.org), and placing it in a position that allows it adequate visibility. As specified in point 3, you must also provide access to the transparent copy of the text. A direct link to the history page or its complete reproduction, in case it is difficult to identify the author or the main authors of the entry, is highly recommended.


If you want to use the material of Masticationpedia on other media, including printed, digital or radio-television publications, and in any case on any other vehicle for the transmission of information in general, you must compulsorily comply with all the requirements set out above.

As for the images that may be present on the page, click on each of them to trace the author and the specific license.

The question of the legislation to be applied

In all matters relating to copyright and related fields, especially with regard to images, the question has often arisen as to what legislation and which Italian version of Masticationpedia should apply, whether Italian or British or other. Whereas

Masticationpedia resides physically (with its servers) in the United Kingdom and legally too (as the Masticationpedia Charity, head of content is located there), in the United Kingdom; most of the contributors of the Masticationpedia in the Italian language reside in Italy and from Italy connect to Masticationpedia,

it is concluded that the material uploaded in Masticationpedia must comply with the laws of UK and of the country in which the contributor resides or is a citizen, to fully protect both Masticationpedia and the users themselves. It is therefore not possible to apply only US or British legislation, often more permissive, ignoring the Italian one.

Note

  1. In other words, it is a condition that arises at the same time as the work originates: when it is created, it is already protected by copyright.
  2. However, each specific case might require further discussion on how far the reformulation should be extended to, in a particular context
  3. Most western legal systems set the term for the termination of copyright protection at 70 years after the author's death. Visit an interesting page on Commons.
  4. As controversial as the legitimacy of such a ban is, the policy of Masticationpedia on this point is of extreme caution: in case of manifest dislike, a site is not linked.