Simple English Wikipedia's official policies and guidelines can be thought of as five pillars that show how the project works:
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia containing elements of general encyclopedias, specialized encyclopedias, and almanacs. All articles must follow our no original research policy, and strive for verifiable accuracy: unreferenced material may be removed, so please provide references. Wikipedia is not the place to insert personal opinions, experiences, or arguments. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Wikipedia is not a soapbox, an advertising platform, a vanity press, an experiment in anarchy or democracy, or a web directory. It is not a newspaper or a collection of source documents; these kinds of content should be contributed to the Wikimedia sister projects.
Wikipedia has a neutral point of view, which means we strive for articles that advocate no single point of view. Sometimes this requires representing multiple points of view, presenting each point of view accurately, providing context for any given point of view, and presenting no one point of view as "the truth" or "the best view." It means citing verifiable, authoritative sources whenever possible, especially on controversial topics. When a conflict arises regarding neutrality, declare a cool-down period and tag the article as disputed, hammer out details on the talk page, and follow dispute resolution.
Wikipedia is free content that anyone may change. All text is available under the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) and may be distributed or linked accordingly. Recognize that articles can be changed by anyone and no individual controls any specific article; therefore, any writing you contribute can be mercilessly changed and redistributed at will by the community. Do not infringe on copyright or submit work licensed in a way incompatible with the GFDL.
Wikipedia has a code of conduct: Respect your fellow Wikipedians even when you may not agree with them. Be civil. Avoid conflicts of interest, personal attacks or sweeping generalizations. Find consensus, avoid edit wars, follow the three-revert rule, and remember that there are 118,483 articles on the Simple English Wikipedia to work on and discuss. Act in good faith, do not make problems to prove something, and assume good faith on the part of others. Be open and welcoming. Wikipedia does not have firm rules besides the five general principles presented here. Be bold in changing, moving, and modifying articles. Although it should be aimed for, perfection is not required. Do not worry about making mistakes. All prior versions of articles are kept, so there is no way that you can accidentally damage Wikipedia or irretrievably destroy content. Remember, whatever you write here will be preserved for posterity.
Recent Copyright information from Stanford.edu
direct quote . . .
Authors Guild v. Google, Inc.
Published on: October 16, 2015
Plaintiffs, authors of published books under copyright, filed suit against Google for copyright infringement. Google, acting without permission of rights holders, has made digital copies of tens of millions of books, including plaintiffs’, through its Library Project and its Google books project. The district court concluded that Google’s actions constituted fair use under 17 U.S.C. 107. On appeal, plaintiffs challenged the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Google. The court concluded that: (1) Google’s unauthorized digitizing of copyright-protected works, creation of a search functionality, and display of snippets from those works are non-infringing fair uses. The purpose of the copying is highly transformative, the public display of text is limited, and the revelations do not provide a significant market substitute for the protected aspects of the originals. Google’s commercial nature and profit motivation do not justify denial of fair use. (2) Google’s provision of digitized copies to the libraries that supplied the books, on the understanding that the libraries will use the copies in a manner consistent with the copyright law, also does not constitute infringement. Nor, on this record, is Google a contributory infringer. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View “Authors Guild v. Google, Inc.” on Justia Law
- See more at: http://fairuse.stanford.edu/#sthash.RRS0zxPJ.dpuf
