1.4 Creative Commons Licenses

Most of the content in this subunit comes from the Creative Commons Certificate Links to an external site. 2018 course, the resources of which are available under the CC BY 4.0 Links to an external site. license. Content that doesn't come from the CC Cert will be noted. 

Creative Commons Licenses

Copyright operates by default under an “all rights reserved” approach. Creative Commons licenses Links to an external site. function within copyright law, but they utilize a “some rights reserved” approach. While there are several different CC license options, all of them grant the public permission to use the works under certain standardized conditions. The licenses grant those permissions for as long as the underlying copyright lasts or until you violate the license terms. This is what we mean when we say CC licenses work on top of copyright, not instead of copyright. 

The licenses were designed to be a free, voluntary solution for creators who want to grant the public up-front permissions to use their works. Although they are legally enforceable tools, they were designed in a way that was intended to make them accessible to non-lawyers.

All Creative Commons licenses ensure that creators retain their copyright and get credit for their work, while permitting others to copy and distribute it. Although the tools are designed to be as easy to use as possible, there are still some things to learn in order to fully understand their mechanics.

License Design 

The licenses are built using a three-layer design.

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  • The legal code is the base layer. This contains the “lawyer-readable” terms and conditions that are legally enforceable in court. 
  • The commons deeds are the most well-known layer of the licenses. These are the web pages that lay out the key license terms in so-called “human-readable” terms. The deeds aren't legally enforceable but instead summarize the legal code. 
  • The final layer of the license design recognizes that software plays a critical role in the creation, copying, discovery, and distribution of works. In order to make it easy for websites and web services to know when a work is available under a Creative Commons license, Creative Commons provides a “machine readable” version of the license — a summary of the key freedoms granted and obligations imposed written into a format that applications, search engines, and other kinds of technology can understand. 

The Licenses

Creative Commons licenses are standardized tools, but part of the vision is to provide a range of options for creators who are interested in sharing their works with the public rather than reserving all rights under copyright.

The four license elements — Attribution (BY), ShareAlike (SA), NonCommercial (NC), and NoDerivatives (ND) — combine to make up six different license options.  

All of the licenses include the BY condition. In other words, all of the licenses require that the creator be attributed in connection with their work. Beyond that commonality, the licenses vary whether (1) commercial use of the work is permitted; and (2) whether the work can be adapted, and if so, on what terms. 

To recap, the six licenses — from least to most restrictive in terms of the freedoms granted reusers — are:

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The Attribution license or “CC BY” Links to an external site.allows people to use the work for any purpose (even commercially and even in modified form) as long as they give attribution to the creator.

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The Attribution-ShareAlike license or “BY-SA” Links to an external site. allows people to use the work for any purpose (even commercially and even in modified form), as long as they give attribution to the creator and make any adaptations they share with others available under the same or a compatible license. This is CC’s version of a copyleft Links to an external site.license Links to an external site., and is the license required for content uploaded to Wikipedia, for example.

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The Attribution-NonCommercial license or “BY-NC” Links to an external site.allows people to use the work for noncommercial purposes only, and only as long as they give attribution to the creator.

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The Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license or “BY-NC-SA” Links to an external site. allows people to use the work for noncommercial purposes only, and only as long as they give attribution to the creator and make any adaptations they share with others available under the same or a compatible license.

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The Attribution-NoDerivatives license or “BY-ND” Links to an external site. allows people to use the unadapted work for any purpose (even commercially), as long as they give attribution to the creator.

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The Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license or “BY-NC-ND” Links to an external site. is the most restrictive license offered by Creative Commons. It allows people to use the unadapted work for noncommercial purposes only, and only as long as they give attribution to the licensor.

Public Domain

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And finally, in addition to the CC license suite, Creative Commons also has an option for creators who want to take a “no rights reserved” approach and disclaim copyright entirely. This is CC0, the public domain dedication tool Links to an external site..

License Compatibility

One final remark: When combining works with Creative Commons licenses, keep in mind that certain licenses may not be compatible. Feel free to visit the "Can I combine material under different Creative Commons licenses in my work? Links to an external site." section of Creative Commons' FAQ page for more details. 

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"CC License Compatibility Chart Links to an external site." by Creative Commons is licensed under CC BY 4.0 Links to an external site..

(End of CC Cert content)

Optional Readings

If you would like to understand the Creative Commons licenses and their connection to copyright law in greater depth, read "Open Licensing and Open Education Licensing Policy Links to an external site." by Cable Green. This chapter from Open: The Philosophy and Practices that are Revolutionizing Education and Science (CC BY 4.0 Links to an external site.) also explains how open licensing policy that can be used to advance and expand the use of open educational resources.

Next

Now that you've learned about Creative Commons licenses, go on to test your understanding with a self test by selecting the Next button below.