Copyright

Creative Commons licenses provide a way for you to let people make use of your work without having to ask you for permission. By applying a Creative Commons license, you are telling them what terms they have to meet to use your work.

Make sure to pick the right license to achieve your goal -- once you release a work with a Creative Commons license, you can't later place additional restrictions on the work.

However, application of a Creative Commons license does not limit your right to individually permit others from making additional use of your work which the Creative Commons license would prohibit -- the Creative Commons license just serves as a blanket license which lets others use your works under the terms of the license without requiring everyone who wants to use your work to contact you and receive express permission for their use.

There are different types of Creative Commons licenses which you can apply to your work -- which one you choose depends on how you want people to use your work. See the box below on this page for a discussion of the different Creative Commons licenses which may apply to your work.

If you want to let others do whatever they want with your work, and don't want them to attribute the original work to you, use CC-0. (Public Domain)
 

If you just want make sure others provide attribution for your work, but don't care what else they do with the work, use CC-BY. (Attribution)
 

If, in addition to attribution, you

1. want to permit others to make adaptations of (or create derivatives from) your work, but
2. want someone who adapts your work to make it available to others under the same terms as your original work,

use CC-BY-SA. (Attribution, Share Alike)
 

If, in addition to attribution, you

1. want to permit others to use your work, but
2. want to prohibit them from making any changes/adaptations/derivatives of your work,

use CC-BY-ND. (Attribution, No Derivatives)
 

If, in addition to attribution, you

1. want to permit others to use your work, but
2. don't want them to use it for commercial gain,

use CC-BY-NC. (Attribution, Non Commercial)
 

This combines the NC and SA restrictions. If, in addition to attribution, you

1. want to permit others to use your work, but
2. don't want them to use it for commercial gain, and
3. want someone who adapts your work to make it available to others under the same terms as your original work,

use CC-BY-NC-SA. (Attribution, Non Commercial, Share Alike)
 

This combines the NC and ND restrictions. If, in addition to attribution, you

1. want to permit others to use your work, but
2. don't want them to use it for commercial gain, and
3. want to prohibit them from making any changes/adaptations/derivatives of your work,

use CC-BY-NC-ND. (Attribution, Non Commercial, No Derivatives)

[Images of Creative Commons Logos from Creative Commons website: https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/public-domain/cc0/ (CC-0 image) and https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ (all other images), licensed under a CC--BY 4.0 license.]

If you have found something licensed with a Creative Commons license, and want to use it or learn how to properly attribute it, see the Creative Commons licenses page of our Open Education Resources research guide.