About Creative Commons

Creative Commons: An Overview

As an introduction to Creative Commons licenses, please watch this brief video (3:20 minutes):

Source: A Shared Culture by Jesse Dylan Links to an external site. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike Links to an external site. (CC BY-NC-SA) license.

Copyright & Creative Commons

In this part of the course, we will consider copyright, the legal right of a creator of original work. The table below describes how Creative Commons license provisions amend standard copyright provisions to enable reuse, remixing, and redistribution of works.

“Copyright is a legal right created by the law of a country that grants the creator of an original work exclusive rights Links to an external site. for its use and distribution. This is usually only for a limited time” (“Copyright”, 2015, para. 1 Links to an external site.). Any time an individual or group creates something, such as an image, they automatically have the rights to that image and copies of it, i.e. copyright. They do not need to register with any organization in order to get the copyrights for their work, it is assumed as soon as they create it. This means that others are required to seek permission, and often pay a fee, in order to use the work. For example, photographers might sell their photos to a magazine under the condition that they will be paid based on the number of copies printed or sold.

Creative Commons (CC) Links to an external site. is a nonprofit organization that provides a set of legal and other tools that enable reuse, remixing, and redistribution of creative works. A Creative Commons license allows creators to share their work with fewer restrictions than copyright alone. Every work still has copyright applied to it; the CC licenses are additional conditions that layer on top of the basic copyrights. There are four distinct conditions, or modules, available in a creative commons license: attribution, share-alike, non-commercial, and no derivatives. Upon creating a work, an author may attach a creative commons license that offers a combination of these conditions.

Creative Commons Conditions

The Creative Commons license conditions are outlined in the table below:

	Attribution - BY Others may copy, distribute, display, and perform your copyrighted work, and create derivatives based on (adapt, modify) your work, so long as they give you credit the way you request.
	Non-Commercial - NC Others may copy, distribute, display, and perform your copyrighted work, and create derivatives based on (adapt, modify) you work, but for non-commercial purposes only.
	Share Alike - SA Others may create and distribute derivatives based on (adapt, modify) your work, but they must use an identical license to the license that your work uses.
	No Derivative Works - ND Others may distribute, display, and perform your copyrighted work, however, they must be your work verbatim, not derivatives of your work.
	Public Domain - PD (Zero) Indicates that the author has waived all copyrights to the work and has released it into the public domain Links to an external site..

Creative Commons Combinations

The first four Creative Commons conditions can be combined in six different configurations which allows creators to help specify how they are permitting the public to use their work Links to an external site.. For example, an author may wish to have their work distributed and available for free, but not want anyone to create derivatives (change) their work. They might consider using a creative commons attribution, no-derivatives license. Their work would include the following image and statement including a hyperlink to the license deed:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License Links to an external site.

The six Creative Commons License combinations Links to an external site. include:

Please watch this brief video (5:32 minutes) that provides examples of how some of these Creative Commons licenses work in practice:

Public Domain

Creative works may also be in the Public Domain, meaning that the creator’s copyrights have expired, been forfeited, or are inapplicable. In this case, the content is free to reuse, remix, and redistribute without restriction. Creative Commons's CC0 tool Links to an external site. allows a creator to waive all rights and place a work in the public domain. In addition, Creative Common's Public Domain Mark Links to an external site. is available for works that are free of known copyright.