Copyrighted Material
This guideline is for those who use copyrighted/trademarked material on their room entries or websites.
Copyrighted material, be it images or text, are the sole property of the creator of the material, or the current holder of the copyright.
In most cases this material is able to be used by anyone, as long as it is not for profit or it is used with permission.  For profit use requires that some sort of monitary contribution is returned to the copyright holder, for the rights to use their material.
Not for profit use is another matter, and is most usually available for use, BUT it should be clearly noted somewhere in your own design that the material/copyright being used belongs to whoever holds the copyright.
This applies to room entries, website text, or room message forums, as it is not usually practiced to have such posted for avatars, character tags, or coding used within rooms. We CANNOT allow the actual name of a copyrighted/trademarked entity on the public Portal of Dreams whochat such as a book/movie/tv/video game title in any way from said source, and if a Room Leader has questions, they need to approach the section teams at the time of their room application so the issues/questions can be researched for legal purposes.
Here is an example of what could be posted on a room entry that possibly contains links or images to copyrighted items be it book, movie, tv, media, or video games.  In the example below, we are using italics to show where to put products names/titles, and the company name(s) that hold the actual copyright or trademark.  Please be sure to list ALL company names, as sometimes copyrights/trademarks are owned by multiple companies or divisions of a company such as in movie production or game software:
Any direct mention of Product Name/Title or related information mentioned on this page, or linked pages, as well as on linked forums from this page, are Copyrighted/Trademarked © 2013 Company Name. All Rights Reserved.  This page, any attached pages, and the aforementioned forums are for NON-PROFIT, Entertainment, and Fan Use ONLY with NO exceptions.  Portal of Dreams and Minogue Technologies are released from, and free of any claims or any actions brought forth from said copyright/trademark mentioned above and hold and make no claims over said copyrighted/trademark material in any way.
If you are not sure if the material you are using is copyrighted you should be able to Google the main corporate site of the publisher, and there you should find something that speaks about their copyright holding.  But beware, just because it's not easily found does not mean the copyright does not exist, so you would be using the material at your own risk should the holder not wish their material being used.  We encourage you to err on the side of caution, and put it somewhere.
When it comes to overly changing or manipulating copyrighted material, more often than not that require written permission from the copyright holder. This means images or text.
If you find a copyright that specifically states it is NOT to be used in any way whatsoever, then you should under any circumstances, use the material or you could face severe penalties and/or fines.  Copyright holders such as that almost always have persons in their employ that purposely look for anyone using their material without permission or using it at all.
It all comes down to ... If you have to ask then you already know the answer and should, as stated above, exercise on the side of caution and protect yourself and Portal of Dreams.
Violation of copyright/trademark laws are no light matter and we at Portal of Dreams want all that call it home to have a carefree and great time while spending their time here.