Why are we still talking about licensing?

As you saw during the Workshop, introducing Creative Commons licensing to faculty is important: it lets faculty know that they are not abandoning copyright - rather, they are taking a more proactive approach to sharing their copyrighted material.

There are always a lot of questions about Creative Commons licensing and copyright more generally. This module provides you with a little more insight into the licenses themselves. However, when in doubt, seek additional guidance from a copyright or scholarly communications librarian!

PRO TIP: If you are faced with increasingly challenging questions on copyright during a workshop, you don't have to go down the rabbit hole. Copyright can take a lot of time to explain and explore! To keep your workshop moving forward, you can acknowledge the question as a good one and indicate that you will follow up after the workshop (and be sure to do so!).

Note: The content on this page comes from the Creative Commons Certificate 2018 course, the resources of which are available under the CC BY 4.0 license.

What are Creative Commons Licenses?

Creative Commons licensing is the fuel that makes the engine of open education work. Creative Commons licenses work alongside copyright to allow creators to legally share their work. Watch this short video about how CC works:

Copyright operates by default under an “all rights reserved” approach. Creative Commons licenses 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.

Creative Commons Licenses Layers

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:

CC BY License

The Attribution license or “CC BY” 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.

CC BY Share Alike License

The Attribution-ShareAlike license or “BY-SA” 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 license, and is the license required for content uploaded to Wikipedia, for example.

CC BY Non-commercial License

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

CC BY Non-commercial, Sharealike License

The Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license or “BY-NC-SA” 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.

CC BY No Derivatives License

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

CC BY Non-commercial, no derivatives license

The Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license or “BY-NC-ND” 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

Public Domain license image

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.

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?" section of Creative Commons' FAQ page for more details.

Creative Commons License Compatibility Chart

"CC License Compatibility Chart" by Creative Commons is licensed under CC BY 4.0.

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