Creative Commons Licensing

Creative Commons helps you share knowledge and creativity with the world. Creative Commons licenses are a simple, standardized way to give others permission to share and use your work -- on conditions of your choice. You retain copyright of your work while allowing others to make limited uses. There are six main Creative Commons licenses you can use when you choose your work under CC terms. These licenses are based on four conditions.

License Conditions

 Attribution (by)

All CC license require that others who use your work in any way must give you credit the way you request, but not in a way that suggests you endorse them or their use. If they want to use your work without giving credit or for endorsement purposes, they must get your permission first.

 ShareAlike (sa)

You let others copy, distribute, perform, and modify your work, as long as they distribute any modified work on the same terms. If they want to distribute modified works under other terms, they must get your permission first.

 NonCommercial (nc)

You let others copy, distribute, display, perform, and (unless you have chosen NoDerivatives) modify and use your work for any purpose other than commercially unless they get your permission first.

 NoDerivatives (nd)

You let others copy, distribute, display and perform only original copies of your work. If they want to modify your work, they must get your permission first.

Extra Resources

Opening Licensing Playbook with CCCOER - Quill West, OER Program Manager, Pierce College District and Cable Green, Director of Open Education, Creative Commons talk about OER and answer questions based on various scenarios.

• Open Licensing Playbook with CCCOER

Use this tool from Open Washington to help you build attributions and cite open material you find and use.

• Open Attribution Builder

Tips and examples from Creative Commons

• Best Practices for Attribution

"Get Creative!" by Creative Commons is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

License Types

Creative Commons offers six copyright licenses, based on the combinations of the four conditions outlined to the left.

Attribution (CC 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. This is the most accommodating of the licenses offered. Recommended for maximum dissemination and use of licensed materials.

Attribution ShareAlike (CC BY-SA)

This license lets others distribute,, 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. 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 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)

This license lets others reuse the work for any purpose, including commercially; however, it cannot be shared with others in adapted form, and credit must be provided to you.

Attribution-NonCommercial (CC 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 (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 the identical terms.

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

This license is the most restrictive pf the 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 anyway or use them commercially.