Creative Commons develops, supports and stewards legal and technical infrastructure that maximizes digital creativity, sharing, and innovation.
As a non-profit organization, Creative Commons has developed free tools for creating copyright licenses. Content owners can define how their work can be reused and users can license items that match their usage of the work.
"What is Creative Commons?" by Victor Grigas, Wikimedia Foundation. CC BY-SA 3.0
Creative Commons (CC) licenses allow authors (creators) to share, reuse, or remix their work and make them freely available for others to use. The licenses function within Copyright Law, which means the license will last for the copyright period for the work. So, it is important that you understand the license fully before opting into this system. Once you select a CC license, it lasts for the entire copyright period.
Below is a listing of Creative Commons licenses, with their allowed use explained. For more information on each of these licenses, click on the type of license or the logo.
|
Type of License |
Logo | Allowed Use |
|---|---|---|
| Attribution CC BY |  |
Distribute, remix, tweak and recreate (also commercially) as long as the creator is attributed. |
| Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA |  |
Distribute, remix, tweak and recreate (also commercially) as long as the creator is attributed AND whatever you create is also licensed under the same CC license. |
| Attribution-NoDerivs CC BY-ND |  |
Redistribution for commercial and non-commercial purposes - cannot be modified, and the creator must be attributed. |
| Attribution-NonCommercial CC BY-NC |  |
Distribute, remix, tweak and recreate NON-COMMERCIALLY as long as the creator is attributed. |
| Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA |  |
Distribute, remix, tweak and recreate NON-COMMERCIALLY as long as the creator is attributed AND whatever you create is also licensed under the same CC license. |
| Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs CC BY-NC-ND |  |
Redistribution for NON-COMMERCIAL purposes - cannot be modified, and the creator must be attributed. |
When licensing Creative Commons content, you may want to ask yourself (1) if you're using the item for commercial or non-commercial purposes, (2) are you changing the work in any way, and (3) does the item have a "ShareAlike" or "SA" license. IF the item has a ShareAlike license, you must ALSO license the work under the exact same license.