Creative Commons Licensing

Protecting Creative Work

So, you’ve fleshed out an idea and put together a creative piece you are proud to share. What should you do?

There are two main concerns with creative works, making sure it’s protected the way you want, and getting the visibility for it. Knowing this, you should consider publishing under a Creative Commons license. Creative Commons could be used for any of the following:

• Distribute creative work
• Distribute courseware
• Make your idea available for free
• Disseminate your research results
   

Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that works to increase the amount of creativity (cultural, educational, and scientific content) in the "commons” — the body of work that is available to the public for free and legal sharing, use, repurposing, and remixing.

Creative Commons provides free, easy-to-use legal tools that give everyone from individual creators to major companies and institutions a simple, standardized way to pre-clear copyrights to their creative work.

Creative Commons licenses let people easily change their copyright terms from the default of "all rights reserved” to "some rights reserved.”

Creative Commons licenses are not an alternative to copyright – but rather work within the existing copyright laws and guidelines. They apply on top of copyright, so you can modify your copyright terms to best suit your needs. Creative Commons has collaborated with intellectual property experts all around the world to ensure that their licenses work globally.

Creative Commons’ legal infrastructure gives you flexibility (for example, you can choose to only pre-clear noncommercial uses) and protects the people who use your work (so that they don’t have to worry about copyright infringement, as long as they abide by the terms you have specified).

Also, if you’re an artist, student, educator, scientist, or other creator looking for content that you can freely and legally use, there is a giant pool of Creative Commons-licensed creativity available to you. There are many millions of works – from songs and videos to scientific and academic content — that you can use under the terms of Creative Commons copyright licenses.

Using Creative Commons:
Publishing under a Creative Commons license is easy.

Step 1: Choose Conditions

Publishing under a Creative Commons license is easy. First, choose the conditions that you want to apply to your work.

Attribution. You let people copy, distribute, display, perform, and remix your copyrighted work, as long as they give you credit the way you request. All CC licenses contain this property.

Non-Commercial. You let people copy, distribute, display, perform, and remix your work for non-commercial purposes only. If they want to use your work for commercial purposes, they must contact you for permission.

Share Alike. You let people create remixes and derivative works based on your creative work, as long as they only distribute them under the same Creative Commons license that your original work was published under.

No Derivative Works. You let people copy, distribute, display, and perform only verbatim copies of your work — not make derivative works based on it. If they want to alter, transform, build upon, or remix your work, they must contact you for permission.

Step 2: Get a License

Based on your choices, they’ll give you a license that clearly indicates how other people may use your creative work.