Legal Issues

If you've come here you're probably pretty bored. Mind you, if you're looking to create a site of your own, you may want to know some of this stuff. Either way, it's here, so read on if you have the time to kill.

Disclaimer:
I do not own Yoshi. Nor do I own the idea of Yoshies, Nintendo, or anything related to them except a few consoles, plenty of cartriges/minidiscs, some ROMs, and all of the work on this site with my name on it.

All of my artwork, fan fiction, comics, with my name on it etc are mine, so please do not steal them or I shall have to commit a capital offense directed towards your person.

All of the material created by the members of this site is copyrighted to them.

Some parts of the material on this site are not copyrighted to the creators, notably Yoshi and all official video game characters used.

This is only a fansite, coded for a hobby rather than payment or any other reason. The webmaster is only a Yoshi fan wishing to share this with others, as are the members of this site.

In short, please don't sue. We don't deserve it, nor will it do you any good.

The Fair Use Act of 1967:
Ever wondered why fan sites can exist without being sued for copyright infringement?

It's quite simple, actually. Under the Fair Use Act, any copyrighted material made by a major corporation (Nintendo, Capcom, etc as far as this site goes) may be used without permission and without fees so long as the material is not used for non-profit purposes, and full credit is given (Hence disclaimers at the top of fan fiction chapters). Although this doesn't really apply to the fanart on this site, it's still common courtesy to not steal work, as it is technically copyrighted by the creator.

Internet Material Ratings:
G, PG-13, NC-17 don't make any sense to you?

The following ratings have been taken off of Fan Fiction.net, who took them from movieratings.com. Regardless, they're pretty standard:

Ratings guide: (from movieratings.com)

• [G] General Audience: All ages admitted. This signifies that the film rated contains nothing most parents will consider offensive for even their youngest children to see or hear. Nudity, sex scenes, and scenes of drug use are absent; violence is minimal; snippets of dialogue may go beyond polite conversation but do not go beyond common everyday expressions.
• [PG] Parental Guidance Suggested: Some material may not be suitable for children. This signifies that the film rated may contain some material parents might not like to expose to their young children - material that will clearly need to be examined or inquired about before children are allowed to attend the film. Explicit sex scenes and scenes of drug use are absent; nudity, if present, is seen only briefly, horror and violence do not exceed moderate levels.
• [PG-13] Parents Strongly Cautioned: Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13. This signifies that the film rated may be inappropriate for pre-teens. Parents should be especially careful about letting their younger children attend. Rough or persistent violence is absent; sexually-oriented nudity is generally absent; some scenes of drug use may be seen; one use of the harsher sexually derived words may be heard.
• [R] Restricted-Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian: This signifies that the rating board has concluded that the film rated contains some adult material. Parents are urged to learn more about the film before taking their children to see it. An R may be assigned due to, among other things, a film's use of language, theme, violence, sex or its portrayal of drug use.
• [NC-17]No One 17 and Under Admitted: This signifies that the rating board believes that most American parents would feel that the film is patently adult and that children age 17 and under should not be admitted to it. The film may contain explicit sex scenes, an accumulation of sexually-oriented language, or scenes of excessive violence. The NC-17 designation does not, however, signify that the rated film is obscene or pornographic.

Firstly, R and NC-17 have been listed purely for reference. There are places on the net for that kind of material; this is not one of them.

Secondly, if you compare PG-13 guidelines to my reasoning on the Guidelines For Submissions page, you'll see that I'm perfectly within my rights to be slightly more lenient than most other sites when it comes to romance guidelines. Hell, just take a look at the TV guide and the kinds of programs they have on at varying times of the day, and you'll see I'm far below the limit of indecency. How many TV dramas (Coronation Street, for example) have characters heading off to bed together? Lots. Not only that; look around the net and a few webcomics, and you'll see that you could even get just a PG rating if you did it well enough (Lizard comics, for example, had gay characters and gay kisses, yet was only rated PG).

Dot Darkut Dot Free Dot Eff Arr?
This site is hosted on free.fr, which is a hosting site in French. When the old site that hosted this site went down (DarkolicRPG), the webmaster of DRPG (Darkmax) gave me his old free.fr account... just as well, since I don't know enough french to register there. This was an old domain for DRPG before it got its own domain, but now it is being used to host Darkmark's Lair, as opposed to staying as a decrepit storehouse for Darkmax's files.