Using creative commons license

If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms. CC BY-SA includes the following elements: BY — Credit must be given to the creator SA — Adaptations must be shared under the same 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.

It includes the following elements: BY — Credit must be given to the creator NC — Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted 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.

CC BY-ND includes the following elements: BY — Credit must be given to the creator ND — No derivatives or adaptations of the work are permitted 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.

Choosing a License The six licenses and the public domain dedication tool give creators a range of options. Donate to help keep the internet free and open! This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

The growing commons 2. The CC community can also respond to questions, and may have already addressed issues you raise. The CC community email discussion lists and discussion archives may be useful resources. Finally, you may also want to consult with a lawyer to obtain advice on the best license for your needs. The latest version of the Creative Commons licenses is version 4.

You should always use the latest version of the Creative Commons licenses in order to take advantage of the many improvements described on the license versions page. In particular, 4. All CC licenses are intended to work worldwide. Unless you have a specific reason to use a ported license , we suggest you consider using one of the international licenses.

As of version 4. At that point, CC will reevaluate the necessity of porting in the future. We recommend that you use a version 4. This is the most up-to-date version of our licenses, drafted after broad consultation with our global network of affiliates, and it has been written to be internationally valid.

There are currently no ports of 4. All of the ported licenses are at version 3. But even before considering the improvements in 4. As an organization, CC itself licenses all of its own content under an international license because, among other reasons, the international licenses are essentially jurisdiction-neutral while remaining effective globally. The neutral nature of the international licenses appeals to many people and organizations, particularly for use in connection with global projects that transcend political borders.

Finally, it is important to know that some of the ported licenses contain a choice of law provision, which may be undesirable for your needs. However, some rights holders still choose a license ported to their local jurisdiction because they believe their needs are not sufficiently met by the international licenses. If the licenses have been ported to your jurisdiction and you feel that the ported licenses better account for some aspect of local legislation, then you may wish to consider a ported license.

You can use our jurisdiction database to compare international licenses and ports on these issues and others, such as whether a ported license contains a choice of law or forum selection clause. Licensors are not required to use the CC license chooser or provide any information about themselves or their material when applying a CC license to their material. Our machine-readable code enhances the discoverability of your work because that code allows software, search engines, and other tools to recognize when something is licensed under a CC license.

The code also facilitates attribution: when users click on the CC button placed on your site, they will be linked directly to HTML code that they can cut and paste to provide attribution. For online material : Select the license that is appropriate for your material from the CC license chooser and then follow the instructions to include the HTML code. The code will automatically generate a license button and a statement that your material is licensed under a CC license.

If you are only licensing part of a work for example, if you have created a video under a CC license but are using a song under a different license , be sure to clearly mark which parts are under the CC license and which parts are not.

The HTML code will also include metadata, which allows the material to be discovered via Creative Commons-enabled search engines. For third-party platforms : Many media platforms like Flickr , YouTube , and SoundCloud have built-in Creative Commons capabilities, letting users mark their material with a CC license through their account settings.

The benefit of using this functionality is that it allows other people to find your content when searching on those platforms for CC-licensed material. Legally, these three options are the same. The only difference between applying a CC license offline rather than online is that marking a work online with metadata will ensure that users will be able to find it through CC-enabled search engines.

CC offers resources on the best practices for marking your material and on how to mark material in different media. CC offers its licenses, code, and tools to the public free of charge, without obligation. You do not need to register with Creative Commons to apply a CC license to your material; it is legally valid as soon as you apply it to any material you have the legal right to license. CC does not require or provide any means for creators or other rights holders to register use of a CC license, nor does CC maintain a database of works distributed under Creative Commons licenses.

CC also does not require registration of the work with a national copyright agency. It is the expression that is protected by copyright and covered by the licenses, not any particular medium or format in which the expression is manifested. This means, for example, that a CC license applied to a digitized copy of a novel grants the public permission under copyright to use a print version of the same novel on the same terms and conditions though you may have to purchase the print version from a bookstore.

We recommend against using Creative Commons licenses for software. Instead, we strongly encourage you to use one of the very good software licenses which are already available. Unlike software-specific licenses, CC licenses do not contain specific terms about the distribution of source code, which is often important to ensuring the free reuse and modifiability of software.

Many software licenses also address patent rights, which are important to software but may not be applicable to other copyrightable works. Additionally, our licenses are currently not compatible with the major software licenses, so it would be difficult to integrate CC-licensed work with other free software.

Existing software licenses were designed specifically for use with software and offer a similar set of rights to the Creative Commons licenses.

Version 4. This compatibility mechanism is designed for situations in which content is integrated into software code in a way that makes it difficult or impossible to distinguish the two.

There are special considerations required before using this compatibility mechanism. Read more about it here. While we recommend against using a CC license on software itself, CC licenses may be used for software documentation, as well as for separate artistic elements such as game art or music. CC licenses can be used on databases. In the 4. Many governments and others use CC licenses for data and databases.

Creative Commons does not recommend using a CC license on a logo or trademark. While a logo or trademark can be covered by copyright laws in addition to trademark laws, the special purposes of trademarks make CC licenses an unsuitable mechanism for sharing them in most cases. Generally, logos and trademarks are used to identify the origin of a product or service, or to indicate that it meets a specific standard or quality.

Allowing anyone to reuse or modify your logo or trademark as a matter of copyright could result in your inability to limit use of your logo or trademark selectively to accomplish those purposes. Applying a CC license to your trademarks and logos could even result in a loss of your trademark rights altogether. See below for more about how to license material that includes a trademark or logo. There are other ways to share your logos and trademarks widely while preserving your trademark rights.

Establishing a trademark policy that grants permissions in advance for limited uses is one common alternative. Mozilla , Wikimedia , and Creative Commons have each published policies that accomplish the dual objectives of encouraging reuse and preserving trademark rights. CC licenses should not be applied to works in the worldwide public domain. All CC licenses are clear that they do not have the effect of placing restrictions on material that would otherwise be unrestricted, and you cannot remove a work from the public domain by applying a CC license to it.

Note that, in some cases, a work may be in the public domain under the copyright laws of some jurisdictions but not others. For example, U. A CC license applied to such a work would be effective and the license restrictions enforceable in jurisdictions where copyright protection exists, but would not be operative if U.

Creators may also apply Creative Commons licenses to material they create that are adapted from public domain works, or to remixed material, databases, or collections that include work in the public domain. However, in each of these instances, the license does not affect parts of the work that are unrestricted by copyright or similar rights. We strongly encourage you to mark the public domain material , so that others know they are also free to use this material without legal restriction.

That depends. You can apply a CC license to your photograph if your photograph constitutes a work of original authorship, a question that varies by jurisdiction. As a general matter, your photograph must involve some creative choices, such as background setting, lighting, angle, or other mark of creativity.

In practice, if your photograph is sufficiently creative to attract copyright protection, people will likely have to comply with the license conditions if they reproduce your entire photograph in verbatim form, absent some applicable exception or limitation such as fair use. However, they would not have to comply with the license conditions if they reproduce only those parts of the work in the public domain.

This is because your copyright in the adaptation only extends to the material you contributed, not to the underlying work. Yes, but it is important to prominently mark any third party material you incorporate into your work so reusers do not think the CC license applies to that material.

The CC license only applies to the rights you have in the work. For example, if your CC-licensed slide deck includes a Flickr image you are using pursuant to fair use, make sure to identify that image as not being subject to the CC license. For more information about incorporating work owned by others, see our page about marking third party content. Read more considerations for licensors here. CC licenses are copyright licenses, but the latest version of CC licenses also cover certain other rights similar to copyright, including performance, broadcast, and sound recording rights , as well as sui generis database rights.

You may apply a 4. Note that the scope of prior versions of CC licenses was more limited. You should refer to our license versions page for details. As a general matter, all CC licenses preserve moral rights to the extent they exist they do not exist everywhere , but allow uses of the work in ways contemplated by the license that might otherwise violate moral rights. If you apply a 4. The attribution requirement contained in all of our licenses is intended to satisfy the moral right of attribution, but it must be adhered to whether or not the applicable jurisdiction recognizes moral rights.

Earlier versions of the license are also intended to minimize the effect of moral rights on otherwise-permitted uses, but the language in the licenses differs. Additionally, jurisdiction ports of earlier versions of CC licenses often contain versions of the moral rights language designed to account for moral rights legislation in a particular jurisdiction. If you are applying a ported license to your work, you may wish to review the moral rights language in the particular license.

You can also compare how different jurisdictions have implemented this provision , or browse the license versions page to compare the treatment of this issue across the different versions of the CC licenses. Yes, you may offer material under a Creative Commons license that includes a trademark indicating the source of the work without affecting rights in the trademark, because trademark rights are not licensed by the CC licenses.

However, applying the CC license may create an implied license to use the trademark in connection with the licensed material, although not in ways that require permission under trademark law. To avoid any uncertainty, Creative Commons recommends that licensors who wish to mark material with trademarks or other branding materials give notice to licensors expressly disclaiming application of the license to those elements.

This can be done in the copyright notice, but could also be noted on the website where the work is published. When you apply the latest version 4. For example, if you have licensed a photograph of yourself, you may not assert your right of privacy to have the photo removed from further distribution. Under the 3. If you do not wish to license these rights in this way, you should not apply a CC license to the material where this is a concern.

If there are any third parties who may have publicity, privacy, or personality rights that apply, those rights are not affected by your application of a CC license, and a reuser must seek permission for relevant uses.

If you are aware of any such third party rights in the material you are licensing, we recommend marking the material to give notice to reusers. Plagiarism is generally a matter of ethics and is dealt with primarily through social norms, ethics policies, academic standards, and codes of conduct. Plagiarism will usually give rise to professional or academic sanctions, and will not necessarily be the subject of legal proceedings. Copyright infringement is a matter of law and will give rise to legal sanctions.

An action may be considered plagiarism but not copyright infringement and vice versa, or both at the same time. For example, copying part of a text and not crediting the author could be considered plagiarism in an academic context, but not copyright infringement if the reproduction is allowed under an exception or if the text is in the public domain subject to the application of moral rights.

Conversely, copying part of a text without authorization and without benefiting from an exception but with correctly crediting the author could be copyright infringement but not plagiarism. Creative Commons licenses are not designed to address issues that fall outside the scope of copyright law, although, when the licenses were first developed, Creative Commons expected that the attribution requirement would contribute to reducing instances of plagiarism.

Regardless, activities such as plagiarism are not directly governed by the application of CC licenses. You may license your copyright or distribute your work under more than one set of terms. For example, you may publish a photograph on your website, but only distribute high-resolution copies to people who have paid for access. This is a practice CC supports. However, if the low-resolution and high-resolution copies are the same work under applicable copyright law , permission under a CC license is not limited to a particular copy, and someone who receives a copy in high resolution may use it under the terms of the CC license applied to the low-resolution copy.

Note that, although CC strongly discourages the practice , CC cannot prevent licensors from attempting to impose restrictions through separate agreements on uses the license otherwise would allow. In that case, licensees may be contractually restricted from using the high-resolution copy, for example, even if the licensor has placed a CC license on the low-resolution copy. Creators and other rights holders may wish to check with their collecting society before applying a CC license to their material.

Many rights holders who are members of a collecting society can waive the right to collect royalties for uses allowed under the license, but only to the extent their societies allow. Collecting societies in several countries including Australia, Finland, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Norway, Spain, Taiwan, and the Netherlands take an assignment of rights from creators in present and future works and manage them, so that the societies effectively become the owner of these rights.

Creators in these jurisdictions who belong to collecting societies may not be able to license their material under CC licenses because the collecting societies own the necessary rights, not the creators. CC is working with several collecting societies and running pilot programs that allow creators to use CC licenses in some circumstances.

If you are already a member of a collecting society and want to use CC licenses, you are welcome to encourage your collecting society to give you the option of Creative Commons licensing. One of our goals is to encourage creators and rights holders to experiment with new ways to promote and market their work. There are several possible ways of doing this. If you want to reserve the right to commercialize your work, you may do this by choosing a license with the NC condition.

If someone else wants to use your work commercially and you have applied an NC license to your work, they must first get your permission. As the rights holder, you may still sell your own work commercially.

You may also use funding models that do not depend on using an NC license. For example, many artists and creators use crowdfunding to fund their work before releasing it under a less restrictive license. For more information and ideas, The Power of Open presents case studies of artists, businesspeople, and organizations who use CC.

CC licenses allow for flexibility in the way credit is provided depending on the medium, means, and context in which a licensee is redistributing licensed material. For example, providing attribution to the creator when using licensed material in a blog post may be different than doing so in a video remix. This flexibility facilitates compliance by licensees and reduces uncertainty about different types of reuse—minimizing the risk that overly onerous and inflexible attribution requirements are simply disregarded.

Keep in mind that altering terms and conditions is distinct from waiving existing conditions or granting additional permissions than those in the licenses. CC does not assert copyright in the text of its licenses, so you are permitted to modify the text as long as you do not use the CC marks to describe it. However, we do not recommend this. We also advise against modifying our licenses through indirect means, such as in your terms of service.

A modified license very likely will not be compatible with the same CC license unmodified applied to other material. This would prevent licensees from using, combining, or remixing content under your customized license with other content under the same or compatible CC licenses.

Modifying licenses creates friction that confuses users and undermines the key benefits of public, standardized licenses. Central to our licenses is the grant of a standard set of permissions in advance, without requiring users to ask for permission or seek clarification before using the work.

This encourages sharing and facilitates reuse, since everyone knows what to expect and the burden of negotiating permissions on a case by case basis is eliminated. You may always choose to waive some license terms or conditions. Material licensed under a CC license but with additional permissions granted or conditions waived may be compatibly licensed with other material under the same license. CC licenses are nonexclusive.

Licensors always have the option of entering into separate arrangements for the sharing of their material in addition to applying a CC license. For example, you may wish to license a video game soundtrack under both a CC license and the GPL, so that it may be used under either set of terms. A reuser may then choose which set of terms to comply with. Or, for example, you may offer your material to the public under a NonCommercial license, but offer commercial permissions to fee-paying customers.

Supplemental agreements: Problems arise when licensors design those terms or arrangements to serve not as separate, alternative licensing arrangements but as supplemental terms having the effect of changing the standard terms within the CC license. While you may offer separate terms and conditions to other parties, you should not do so in such a way that would neutralize terms of the CC license. Except in the limited situation where more permissions are being granted or license conditions are waived , if the additional arrangement modifies or conflicts with the CC license terms, then the resulting licensing arrangement is no longer a CC licensing arrangement.

To avoid confusing those who may mistakenly believe the work is licensed under standard CC terms, we must insist that in these instances licensors not use our trademarks, names, and logos in connection with their custom licensing arrangement. It should be noted that any agreements you make with other parties only have an effect on the other parties to that agreement, and do not apply to anyone else receiving the licensed material.

For example, if there are terms of use that apply to visitors to your website on which you host CC-licensed material, your terms of use may apply to visitors to that website, but not to anyone who receives copies of the CC-licensed material elsewhere. Even for the visitors to your website, any separate terms and conditions do not become part of the license—they remain a separate contractual agreement, and violation of this agreement does not constitute copyright infringement.

Not all kinds of encryption or access limitations are prohibited by the licenses. Likewise, limiting recipients to a particular set of users for example, by requiring a username and password to enter a site does not restrict further use of the content by the recipients. In these examples, these things do not prevent the recipient from exercising all of the rights granted by the license, including the right to redistribute it further.

If someone is applying effective technological measures to your CC-licensed material that do restrict exercise of the licensed rights such as applying DRM that restricts copying , this is a violation of the license terms unless you have chosen to grant this permission separately. CC licenses grant permission to use the licensed material in any media or format regardless of the format in which it has been made available.

This is true even if you have applied a NoDerivatives license to your work. CC licenses are not revocable. Once something has been published under a CC license, licensees may continue using it according to the license terms for the duration of applicable copyright and similar rights.

As a licensor, you may stop distributing under the CC license at any time, but anyone who has access to a copy of the material may continue to redistribute it under the CC license terms. While you cannot revoke the license, CC licenses do provide a mechanism for licensors to ask that others using their material remove the attribution information. You should think carefully before choosing a Creative Commons license. CC offers six core licenses , each of which grants a different set of permissions.

Before you use CC-licensed material, you should review the terms of the particular license to be sure your anticipated use is permitted. If you wish to use the work in a manner that is not permitted by the license, you should contact the rights holder often the creator to get permission first, or look for an alternative work that is licensed in a way that permits your anticipated use. Note that if you use material in a way that is not permitted by the applicable license and your use is not otherwise permitted by an applicable copyright exception or limitation, the license is automatically terminated and you may be liable for copyright infringement, even if you are eligible to have your rights reinstated later.

Before using material offered under a Creative Commons license, you should know that CC licenses only grant permissions needed under copyright and similar rights , and there may be additional rights you need to use it as intended.

You should also understand that licensors do not offer warranties or guarantees about the material they are licensing unless expressly indicated otherwise. If you want to ask for a warranty or guarantee about rights to use the material, you should talk with the licensor before using it. It depends. CC licenses do not license rights other than copyright and similar rights which include sui generis database rights in version 4.

For example, they do not license trademark or patent rights, or the publicity, personality, and privacy rights of third parties. However, licensors agree to waive or not assert any moral rights , publicity rights, personality rights, or privacy rights they themselves hold, to the limited extent necessary to allow exercise of the licensed rights.

Any rights outside of the scope of the license may require clearance i. You should make sure you have permission to use any third party content contained in the work you want to use, or that your use is otherwise allowed under the laws of your jurisdiction, particularly in cases such as fair use where your right to use the content depends on the particular context in which you plan to use it. You may wish to obtain legal advice before using CC-licensed material if you are not sure whether you have all the rights you need.

In the somewhat limited circumstances where sui generis database rights apply to your use, special conditions apply and there are more specific considerations you should be aware of.

Under 4. A fuller explanation of these variations and related considerations is available in the Data FAQ. If you are looking for material offered under a Creative Commons license, CC Search is a good starting point.

There is also a directory of organizations and individuals who use CC licenses. Be sure to confirm that the material you want to use is actually under a CC license, as search results may sometimes be misleading. While many if not most CC-licensed works are available at no cost, some licensors charge for initial access to CC-licensed works—for example, by publishing CC-licensed content only to subscribers, or by charging for downloads.

However, even if you have paid an access charge, once you have a copy of CC-licensed material, you may make any further uses permitted by the license without paying licensing fees. If you wish to make uses that are not permitted by the license—for example, making a commercial use of an NC-licensed photo—the licensor may charge for those additional rights. Our porting process involved adapting the international licenses to the legal framework of different jurisdictions, and in that process slight adjustments may have been made that you should make yourself aware of in advance of using the material.

You can find more information about the ported licenses in the Jurisdiction Database. There are currently no ported versions of 4. All official translations of the 4. However, the ported versions of 3. For example, a handful of the ported licenses contain provisions specifying which laws will apply in the event the licensor chooses to enforce the license, and a few of the ported licenses contain forum selection clauses.

Contact the rights holders to ask for permission. Otherwise, unless an exception or limitation to copyright applies , your use of the material may violate the Creative Commons license. If you violate the terms of the license, your rights to use the material will be automatically terminated , and you may be liable for copyright infringement. When using Creative Commons images, you are entering into an agreement with its creator, just as you do when you use other copyrighted images.

A purchased stock photo usually has restrictions as to where and how it can be used. Creative Common licenses are no different in that regard. Always check the license and terms before using a Creative Commons work. Follow the attribution guidelines. Help support this incredible library of creative works. Make sure to double check any images you find this way.

Better yet, use one of the sites mentioned above with vetted Creative Commons collections. Creative Commons is your key to a world of free creative works available to use for virtually all your projects. By performing some simple due diligence and following the terms of use for each license, you can use these photos, videos, audio files, and other works with confidence. In addition, your participation in the use of Creative Commons ensures the future of this valuable free resource. I design engaging online experiences and constantly strive to make the web a better place.

I'm passionate about strong coffee, travel, cover songs, and typography. We'll take care of the website design, analytics, and search optimization You are currently viewing our site for your specific industry.

How does copyright work? Topics Licensing. About the author. Jess Weichler - Jess Weichler is a digital artist using open source software and hardware to create works digitally and in the physical world at CyanideCupcake.

She is also an award-winning educator for and founder of MakerBox. More about me. Recommended reading What is open core? Avoid this common open source scanning error. Test cases and open source license enforcement.