According to the Creative Commons website:
"Creative Commons is a set of legal tools, a nonprofit organization, as well as a global network and a movement — all inspired by people’s willingness to share their creativity and knowledge, and enabled by a set of open copyright licenses."
Creative Commons copyright licenses allow creators great flexibility in determining how their work may be used. This ties in with the 5 R's of OER: Retain, Revise, Remix, Reuse, and Redistribute.
Creative Commons licenses are built upon the following elements as restrictions to how a work might b used:
BY: Credit must be given to the creator.
NC: Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted.
ND: No derivatives or adaptations of the work are permitted.
SA: Adaptations must be shared under the same terms.
The following CC License options are listed from most to least permissive:
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CC BY | BY: Credit must be given to the creator. |
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CC BY SA | BY: Credit must be given to the creator. SA: Adaptations must be shared under the same terms. |
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CC BY NC | BY: Credit must be given to the creator. NC: Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted. |
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CC BY NC SA | BY: Credit must be given to the creator. NC: Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted. SA: Adaptations must be shared under the same terms. |
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CC BY ND | BY: Credit must be given to the creator. ND: No derivatives or adaptations of the work are permitted. |
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CC NC ND | BY: Credit must be given to the creator. NC: Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted. ND: No derivatives or adaptations of the work are permitted. |
There are many things to consider before choosing to publish your work with a CC license, but there are two considerations that are especially important.
First, Creative Commons licenses cannot be revoked. Once you choosee to apply a CC license, anyone can rely on the restrictions and permissions granted by that licenses for as long as that work is proteected by copyright.
Second, you must own or control copyright in the work. For original work, this is usually not an issue. If a work is created within the scope of the creator's job, then the copyright holder might be the employer of the creator, for example.
If you're interested in licensing your work with Creative Commons, check out the full list of pre-licensing considerations.
Releasing your original work under a Creative Commons license is as simply as adding text in the copyright notice which includes your desired license and a link to the license deed. For example:
© 2024. This work is openly licensed via CC BY 4.0.
If you are unsure of which license to choose, the CC License Chooser tool can help you generate HTML code for a liceense by answering a few questions. The license statement generateed will look like this:
This work is licensed under CC BY 4.0
It's as simple as that!
The information on this page has been adapted from the Creative Commons website by Creative Commons, which is licensed under CC BY 4.0