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Get Creative with Creative Commons

Get to know the CC licenses

Why Creative Commons?

Creative Commons was created to make it easier for creators to share their works in a way that adheres to copyright laws and regulations. The licenses can change the creator's "all rights reserved" to "some rights reserved".

It all started in 1998, when the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act extended the copyright terms for all works in the US by 20 years, including already copyrighted works. The new copyright term for individuals became the life of the creator + 70 years. Stanford Law Professor Lawrence Lessig challenged the act together with web publisher Eric Eldred, but lost in the Supreme Court. After this, Lessig and others started the nonprofit organization Creative Commons and the licenses were released in 2002.  

Creative Commons defined

How does a license work?

A Creative Commons license consists of three different layers.

The legal code:

Defines the terms and conditions of the license that are legally enforceable in court. Written in "lawyer language".

The commons deed:

The web page that summarizes the license in "human language". Not legally enforceable, but easy to understand for users.

The machine-readable version:

Metadata that makes it easier for search engines to find CC-licensed work. Written in software language CC Rights Expression Language.

 

The license elements

All licenses give credit to the creator of the work. When choosing a license, you then need to consider if others should be able to make adaptations to your work and if others should be able to use your work in commercial settings. The different license elements are combined in different ways to create different possibilities.

Attribution or "BY": This means that attribution must be given to the creator and is included in all CC-licenses.

Non-commercial or "NC": This means that only non-commercial use of material is allowed. Please note that it is the use of the work that has to be non-commercial, not the user. A for-profit company can use a work licensed with NC for a non-profit purpose.

ShareAlike or "SA": This means that any adaptations of the work must be shared under the same terms. You can't create an adaptation of an SA work and share it with a NoDerivatives license.

NoDerivatives or "ND": No adaptations or derivatives of the work are permitted. Please note that you can make adaptations for your own personal use, but you can't share it with others. 

The Creative Commons licenses

"CC-BY" is the most permissive license. This license allows you to use and adapt the work for any purpose (even commercially) as long as you give credit to the creator.

 

"BY-SA" allows you to use and adapt the work for any purpose (even commercially). You must give credit to the creator and make any adaptations you share with others available under the same or a compatible license. 

 

"BY-NC" allows you to use the work, or adaptations of the work, for noncommercial purposes only, and only as long as you give credit to the creator.

 

"BY-NC-SA" allows you to use and adapt the work for non-commercial purposes only. You must give credit to the creator and make any adaptations you share with others available under the same or a compatible license.

 

"BY-ND" allows you to use the unadapted work for any purpose (even commercially), as long as you give credit to the creator. You may also adapt the work for your own personal use but may not share any adaptations publicly.

 

“BY-NC-ND” is the most restrictive license. It allows you to use the unadapted work for non-commercial purposes only. You need to give credit to the creator. You may adapt the work for personal use but may not share any adaptations publicly.

 

CC0 and Public Domain

If you would like to give up copyright of a creation and take a "no rights reserved" approach, you can use the CC0 ("CC zero") option:

By doing so, you dedicate your work to the public domain and reusers can distribute, remix, adapt and build upon the resource without any conditions.

 

The Public Domain mark (PDM), however, is used for works that are free of known copyright restrictions worldwide. It is not a legal tool in any way, but rather a way to communicate that a resource is free to use. This is usually because the resource is very old. Anyone can label a work with the PDM.

 

What is the difference between CC0 and PDM?

CC0

  • is only to be used by creators who want to give up their copyright in works that are still subject to copyright.
  • is legally operative and changes the copyright status of the work when applied.

PDM

  • can be used by anyone who finds a work that is known to be free from copyright throughout the world. 
  • is not legally operative, it is merely meant to be a label of works free from copyright.
Please note! You can never remove something from the public domain and add a CC license to it.