Creative Commons licenses provide a standardized way to grant the public permission to share and use your creative work — on conditions of your choice. Here’s a quick overview of the different types of Creative Commons licenses available.
What is Creative Commons?
Creative Commons (CC) is a non-profit organization that helps overcome legal obstacles to the sharing of knowledge and creativity to address the world’s pressing challenges. Creative Commons provides free, easy-to-use copyright licenses to make a simple and standardized way to give the public permission to share and use your creative work.
Types of Creative Commons Licenses
CC0 (Public Domain)
The most permissive license that effectively releases your work into the public domain. Anyone can use, modify, or distribute your work for any purpose without asking for permission.
CC BY (Attribution)
This license allows others to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator.
CC BY-SA (Attribution-ShareAlike)
This license allows others to remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given and the new creations are licensed under identical terms.
CC BY-NC (Attribution-NonCommercial)
This license allows others to remix, adapt, and build upon the material non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge the original creator, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.
How to Choose?
Consider these questions when choosing a Creative Commons license:
- Do you want to allow commercial use of your work?
- Do you want to allow modifications to your work?
- If you allow modifications, do you want them to be shared under the same terms?
The Creative Commons license chooser at https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/cclicenses/ can help you determine which license is right for your work.
Creative Commons License
CC0 enables scientists, educators, artists and other creators and owners of copyright- or database-protected content to waive those interests in their works and thereby place them as completely as possible in the public domain.
