3 Anatomy of a CC Licence
When someone says that a work is “under Creative Commons” or is “CC licensed,” what they mean is that the work carries a Creative Commons licence. There are six to choose from, and they all have different terms and conditions for use. Let’s talk about the differences between these licences, what the terms are for each licence, and how to choose the right one for your purposes.
The Creative Commons Licences at Work
My organization, BCcampus, is a small but mighty entity funded by the British Columbia Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Training. Our mandate is to support post-secondary institutions in the province of British Columbia, Canada, as they “evolve their teaching and learning practices to create a better experience for students.”
One way that we do this is by offering a collection of openly licensed teaching and learning resources called the B.C. Open Collection, which contains textbooks, course packs, test banks, and more. Every item in this collection carries either a Creative Commons licence or a different open licence. With few exceptions, most works in the collection carry licences that allow teachers to make changes so that they can customize materials to their individual contexts. Thanks to Creative Commons licences, BCcampus can effectively serve teachers and learners in our province, Canada, and the world at large.
The Three Layers of a Creative Commons Licence
Before we talk about the differences between Creative Commons licences, let’s talk about their similarities. Each Creative Commons licence is made up of three different layers that cater to different users. These layers are:
- Legal code. This is the legally enforceable agreement that authors and users are bound by when a Creative Commons licence is in play. Lawyers would be most likely to use this layer. For an example, see the legal code of the CC BY-NC licence.
- Human-readable summary. This layer explains in plain language what a user is legally allowed to do with a CC-licensed work. Most people will look to this layer when trying to understand a CC licence and link to this layer when writing an attribution statement. For an example, see the human-readable summary of the CC BY-NC licence.
- Machine-readable licence. This layer is designed to efficiently communicate to different kinds of software what a Creative Commons licence allows a person to do. For more information about this, read about CC Rights Expression Language.[1]
The Six Creative Commons Licences
Creative Commons provides six different open licences that anyone may apply to their works. From least to most restrictive, they are:
| Licence | Abbreviated Name and Link | Licence Button |
|---|---|---|
| Creative Commons Attribution | CC BY | |
| Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike | CC BY-SA | |
| Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial | CC BY-NC | |
| Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike | CC BY-NC-SA | |
| Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives |