Features of Creative Commons Licenses

Creative Commons licenses use a three-layer design:

  • The Legal Code. Each license begins as a traditional legal document -- written for lawyers. 
  • The Commons Deed ("Human Readable" version). A version of the license that content creators, educators, and scientists can understand.
  • A Machine-Readable Version of the License. A summary of the key freedoms and obligations written into a format that software systems, search engines, and other kinds of technology can understand.

The licenses and their major features are listed below. See the Creative Commons license site Links to an external site. for additional details, including license deeds and legal codes.

CC by

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 licenses offered. Recommended for maximum dissemination and use of licensed materials.

Share alike 

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 the 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 also 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.

No Drv

Attribution - NoDerivs

CC 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.

Noncommercial

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.

Non commercial share alike

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.

Non commercial No dervis

Attribution - NonCommercial-NoDerivs

CC BY-NC-ND

This license is the most restrictive of 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 any way or use them commercially.

Content adapted from https://creativecommons.org/licenses Links to an external site. under a Creative Commons Attribution license.