Research Guides: Online Learning Guide: Creative Commons

What is Creative Commons?

Creative Commons is a non-profit organization that has designed an easy way for you to share your creative work. Without relinquishing any of your copyrights, use a Creative Commons license to allow others to reproduce your copyrighted work and stipulate conditions that must be met. For example, you may require attribution and no commercial use. These and other conditions have been pre-bundled in various combinations; you pick one of these license bundles from the Creative Commons menu. A plug-in is available for Microsoft Office that simplifies this task.

Image of painting with vivid colorful circles

2500 Creative Commons Licenses. Source, flickr: qthomasbower.

A Shared Culture

For an explanation of creative commons, watch this YouTube video by Justin Giugno

CC Licenses Types

Attribution BY
This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation.
Attribution-Share-Alike BY-SA
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.
Attribution-No-Derivs BY-ND
This license allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to you.
Attribution-NonCommercial BY-NC
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 BY-NC-SA
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
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.