Sue Shaffer Learning Commons and Library: Guides: Copyright &amp; Creative Commons Licensing: Creative Commons

What is Creative Commons?

Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that enables the sharing and use of creativity and knowledge through free legal tools.

You can specify to users up front what you are willing to share and how you are willing to share it. By granting specific types of permission up front, CC licenses save users time and allow for increased sharing of resources.

Openverse
Use the Openverse search to find CC licensed works including images, videos, music, books, and more!

fka: CC Search

Creative Commons License Types

While copyright requires users to ask for permission before use, Creative Commons licenses sit on top of copyright and allow creators of a work to tell users up front how they will allow their work to be used.

This portion of a larger infographic, by Foter, helps to explain Creative Commons Licenses.

Would you like to share your work under a Creative Commons license? Adding a CC license to your work is free and only takes a minute. Use the tools linked below to help you choose the appropriate CC license for you. Additionally, each of the license tabs in this box has a copy of the code for that particular license.

Choose a License
Simply enter the information about your work, and Creative Commons will provide you with the html code and icon to post with your work.
How to Choose an Open License Toolkit
Published Aug 2020, National Forum OER/OEP Series: Open Educational Resources & Open Educational Practices

CC BY -- Attribution

This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered. Recommended for maximum dissemination and use of licensed materials.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Want to use this license on your work?

<a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by/4.0/88x31.png" /></a> This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License</a>.

CC BY-SA -- Attribution-ShareAlike

This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. This license is often compared to “copyleft” free and open source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use. This is the license used by Wikipedia, and is recommended for materials that would benefit from incorporating content from Wikipedia and similarly licensed projects.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Want to use this license on your work?

<a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-sa/4.0/88x31.png" /></a> This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License</a>.

CC BY-ND -- Attribution-NoDerivs

This license allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to you.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Want to use this license on your work?

<a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nd/4.0/88x31.png" /></a> This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.

CC BY-NC -- Attribution-NonCommercial

This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Want to use this license on your work?

<a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/4.0/88x31.png" /></a> This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License</a>.

CC BY-NC-SA -- Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Want to use this license on your work?

<a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-sa/4.0/88x31.png" /></a> This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License</a>.

CC BY-NC-ND -- Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs

This license is the most restrictive of our six main licenses, only allowing others to download your works and share them with others as long as they credit you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Want to use this license on your work?

<a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-nd/4.0/88x31.png" /></a> This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.

This content was created by Creative Commons (unless otherwise noted) and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Icons are created by The Noun Project.