Copyright Introduction: Creative Commons Licenses

In the US, creators automatically receive copyright protection for their works.  Copyright includes a combination of rights, is exclusive, and lasts a long time.  So in effect, copyright-protected works are unavailable for many uses until long after their creator has passed away.  Some uses of protected works are considered fair uses.  Beyond fair uses, anyone who wishes to use a protected work often must seek permission from the copyright owner, who may charge a fee. 

The Creative Commons (CC) allows works to be shared easily.  It’s an opt-in scheme in which copyright holders assign licenses to their works and share them online.  To share your work, just select and attach the license terms you prefer.  Or if you’d like to use a work with a CC-license, all you need to do is comply with the copyright holder’s terms.  It’s that easy!

Finally, a special note about sharing software: While code is protected by copyright, CC licenses are not recommended as a way to share it. Many open source licenses exist for computer code. Please see CoMotion's guidance for assigning an open license to software created at UW.  For additional information, consult the UW Libraries' guide to reproducibility.

Creators attach their own licenses to their works.  These terms and symbols describe permitted uses:

  CC – Creative Commons.

  BY – Attribution

  NC – Noncommercial uses

  ND – No derivative uses

  SA – Share alike

  CC0 – CC Zero means that the creator has relinquished all of his or her rights to the extent allowed by law. 

Attribution
CC BY

This is the most accommodating of CC licenses offered.  CC BY allows others to distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. 

Attribution-ShareAlike
CC 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 identical terms.

Attribution-NoDerivs
CC BY-ND

This allows others to redistribute your work—commercially or non-commercially—as long as they credit you and do not alter your work.

Attribution-NonCommercial
CC BY-NC

This lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work for non-commercial purposes as long as they acknowledge you.

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
CC 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 identical terms.

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs
CC BY-NC-ND

This license is the most restrictive, allowing others to download your works and share them with others as long as they credit you.  But they may not change your works or use them commercially.

Public Domain

This symbols means that the item is free of known copyright restrictions.  It is used for very old works whose copyright has expired.

• Here is a big list of websites with content from the Creative Commons. 

• Also see this Guide to Open Resources from UW Libraries.

• These are starting points. There are even more websites not listed in these guides!

“Husky” by Steven Bowler is licensed under CC BY 2.0. 

Here's a simple example.  The title is linked to the photo source, the creator's name is linked to his profile page, and the license is linked to licensed deed.  There are now four successive versions of Creative Commons licenses because the terms have been updated over time.  This example is licensed under Creative Commons version 2.0.  

For guidance in more complicated scenarios (for example, you altered a CC work; the creator uses a pseudonym; or you combined CC works by several different creators) please see this wiki about CC attribution or this page.