Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that helps overcome legal obstacles to the sharing of knowledge and creativity to address the world’s pressing challenges.
One major aspect of Creative Commons is providing Creative Commons licenses and public domain tools that give every person and organization in the world a free, simple, and standardized way to grant copyright permissions for creative and academic works; ensure proper attribution; and allow others to copy, distribute, and make use of those works (Creative Commons).
Creators or copyright holders who wish to apply a Creative Commons license to their work can choose to allow their work to be copied and reused with any one or more restrictions, or certain combinations of restrictions. The four restrictions are:
| Condition | Image | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Attribution |  |
You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. |
| Non Commercial |  |
You may not use the material for commercial purposes. |
| Share Alike |  |
If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original. |
| No Derivatives |  |
If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material. |
The four restrictions above can be remixed into six Creative Commons licenses. The licenses are listed here from most open to least open:
CC BY: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use.
CC BY-SA: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms.
CC BY-NC: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator.
CC BY-NC-SA: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms.
CC BY-ND: This license allows reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use.
CC BY-NC-ND: This license allows reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator.
Unless otherwise noted, this guide is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).
The information on this page was adapted from Creative Commons About CC Licenses which is published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0).