Creative Commons Licensing In-Depth
10 minute read
Creative Commons licenses provide a way for authors and creators to easily communicate how they would like for others to interact with their creative work. Since Creative Commons licenses layer over existing copyright, let’s start by viewing “A Quick Overview of Copyright” to refresh your understanding of copyright in the United States.
One of the ways authors and creators can easily communicate use or re-use permissions is by using Creative Commons (CC) licenses. Authors can select from a suite of six licenses to share how they are willing for others to build on and further distribute their work.
Creative Commons Licenses
Four elements are combined to create a suite of six Creative Commons (CC) licenses. Every license includes the primary element, Attribution. Understanding the meaning of each element can be useful when deciding which CC license to use on your own work.
The key thing to remember at this point is that the licenses layer over existing copyright, and that all of them require attribution. Let’s explore the four elements that combine to create CC licenses.
Four Creative Commons Elements
The four elements that combine to create the suite of Creative Commons licenses are Attribution (BY), Share-Alike (SA), Non-Commercial (SA), and No-Derivatives (ND).
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Attribution (BY) The Attribution (BY) condition is fundamental to all CC licenses. What many creators care about most is receiving credit for their creative work. When reusing CC-licensed work, proper attribution must be given to the original creator — and to other contributors on the work, if any. The CC BY license is the most open of the licenses and allows for the most re-use. |
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Share-Alike (SA) The Share-Alike condition adds a requirement for anyone reusing your work to also license their own creation (based on your work) under the same license. Both the CC BY-SA and CC BY-NC-SA licenses include this condition, effectively making them ‘copyleft’ or ‘viral’ licenses. While this condition effectively “locks open” the content, remixing SA content with non-SA or other-SA licensed work may not be straightforward or allowed at all. |
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Non-Commercial (NC) The Non-Commercial condition allows for reuse and sharing but reserves commercial rights for the creator. The meaning of the NC condition itself and its ability to prevent commercial reuse is not always clear, but the license condition does clearly indicate that commercial reuse rights are not being granted.
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No-Derivatives (ND) The No-Derivatives condition allows sharing and reuse but only if the content is left unchanged. This presents an issue when searching for OER, as no customization or adaptation is allowed by the license. For this reason, ND content is not considered OER and should be considered for reuse only in situations where no adaptations are needed. |
Combining the Elements
The BY (attribution) element is a part of all the licenses. Not all of the other three el