Despite this being a comedy site, you'll be surprised by the amount of people who don't like being called bad names, and in fact are quite keen to extract large amounts of cash from us in lieu of an apology.

However, we want to publish as much of your work as we can, as quickly as possible. But we don't like the sound of prison or compensation, so we've put together a few pointers to keep you on the right side of the law.

To give us a hand, we've roped in a friend of ours. Mr X is the star of our 4Laughs Guide to Defamation. He is easily offended and rarely sees the funny side. What's more, he's got a crack team of lawyers ready to sue. Read on, take note and we'll all avoid the long arm of the law. Hopefully.

• Defamation law protects the reputation of a person from defamatory statements made about him/her to a third party without lawful justification
• A statement is defamatory if, when said about a person and published to a third party, it would make ordinary people think less of that person
• Any living person can sue for defamation, the dead cannot. However, that's not to say that any content defaming Mr X's dead relatives will pass our taste and decency guidelines
• Companies can also sue, if a statement is damaging to their reputation
• A class of individuals can sue, although the larger the group is and the less focussed the defamatory statement is, the less likely they are to sue
• Fictional characters can be deemed to be defamatory if reasonable viewers would understand them to be representations of people or organisations
• It is also possible to offend accidentally. Two pieces of video may not be defamatory when viewed individually, but when cut next to one another in a sequence the result may be offensive, irrelevant of the film makers intentions
• In all cases, the important factor is not whether a story is true, but whether it can be proved to be true

The first rule of 4Laughs club is, Defamatory content will not be published on 4Laughs!

You'll thank us in the long-run as nobody wants lawyers beating down their front door just because they've made a seemingly innocuous comment about a Hollywood star, their sexuality and a member of the Boy Scouts...

So far, so dull, I think we'd all agree. To make it clearer, here are some examples starring the ubiquitous Mr X:

• A statement about Mr X would become defamatory if it would make ordinary people think less of Mr X when published on 4Laughs
• We can't publish defamatory content about Mr X's football team, even if they're awful, as any individual from within that team could sue. But we could publish something about all football teams, as this would be less directly offensive
• Despite being fictional, if you upload a sketch featuring 'Mr Sex', member of '4Gaffes Team', we won't be able to use this if the content is defamatory. Mr X would be far too offended, because it's obviously him and he can be identified
• Simply tagging a clip or comment 'allegedly', won't cut the legal mustard we're afraid. If anything, it draws attention to the fact you're defaming Mr X for being a shoplifter. Allegedly
• Make sure you look carefully at your videos and images, because accidental defamation is still defamation, and the judge will have little option but to beat you with a stick until you apologise and pay large amounts of cash to the wronged party
• If you're not sure, it's better to be safe than sorry. Always refer to the first rule of 4Laughs club - Defamatory content will not be published on 4Laughs