Creative Commons Licenses

The Six Different Creative Commons Licenses

The six Creative Commons licenses allow differing levels of openness. 

Table of the 6 different types of Creative Commons licenses and their uses.

Attribution, CC BY Links to an external site.	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.
Attribution-ShareAlike  CC BY-SA Links to an external site.	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.
Attribution-NoDerivs  CC BY-ND Links to an external site.	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 license is not an OER.
Attribution-NonCommercial Links to an external site. CC BY-NC Links to an external site.	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.
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike  CC BY-NC-SA Links to an external site.	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.
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs  CC BY-NC-ND Links to an external site.	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 license is not an OER.

 

Visual Summary

 

More Resources

Look at the following infographic for a visual representation of the 6 Creative Commons Licenses.

Anatomy of a Creative Commons License.pdf Download Anatomy of a Creative Commons License.pdf

For more about CC licenses Links to an external site. see the Creative Commons website. 

Below are sample handouts that can help with training:

• A 2-page handout about Creative Commons Licensing Download handout about Creative Commons Licensing
• A 1-page handout about Creative Commons Download handout about Creative Commons
• A 2-page flyer about Creative Commons Download flyer about Creative Commons
• Printable tri-fold brochure about Public Domain Download tri-fold brochure about Public Domain
• A small handout on licensing Download handout on licensing

Attributions:

 About the Licenses Links to an external site., Creative Commons Links to an external site., Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license Links to an external site.

Creative Commons licenses Links to an external site. by Foter Links to an external site. (CC-BY-SA Links to an external site.)