Open Educational Resources: Creative Commons Licenses

If you're looking through OER repositories for a work to use or remix, you've seen little black and white boxes or lines of text declaring the works are covered by something called Creative Commons (or CC) licenses. But what do those little notices mean exactly? This page will hopefully clear matters up a bit.

A Creative Commons license is a human- and machine-readable copyright license that clearly indicates what rights the copyright owner retains and what rights the copyright owner offers to other users.

• CC licenses are built on copyright law. They apply only when the work falls within the scope of copyright law. In other words, CC licenses work on top of copyright law provisions, not instead of the copyright law.
• CC licenses do not apply in cases where copyright does not apply. This includes other rights, such as patents, trademarks, privacy and publicity rights.
• CC licenses do not apply in cases where the use of a work falls under one of the other exceptions or limitations to copyright protection, such as fair use. If the use of a work is permitted by an exception to copyright law, then the use is outside the regulation of a copyright license like a CC license.
• You can’t attach a CC license to a work unless you own its copyright.
• No takebacks! Once you license, you can’t un-license (in other words, a CC license is non-revocable).

It's important to note that CC licenses do not reduce, limit, or restrict any rights under exceptions and limitations to copyright, such as fair use or fair dealing. If a use of CC-licensed material would otherwise be allowed because of an applicable exception or limitation, users do not need to rely on the CC license or comply with its terms and conditions (Creative Commons, FAQ, https://creativecommons.org/faq/#do-creative-commons-licenses-affect-exceptions-and-limitations-to-copyright-such-as-fair-dealing-and-fair-use)

The licenses are built using a three layer design.

1. The legal code is the base layer. This contains the “lawyer-readable” terms and conditions that are legally enforceable in court. Take a minute and scan through the legal code of CC BY to see how it is structured. Can you find where the attribution requirements are listed?
2. The commons deeds are the most well-known layer of the licenses. These are the web pages that lay out the key license terms in so-called “human-readable” terms. The deeds are not legally enforceable but instead summarize the legal code. Take some time to explore the deeds for CC BY and CC BY-NC-ND and identify how they differ. Can you find the links to the legal code from each deed?
3. The final layer of the license design recognizes that software plays a critical role in the creation, copying, discovery, and distribution of works. In order to make it easy for websites and web services to know when a work is available under a Creative Commons license, we provide a “machine readable” version of the license—a summary of the key freedoms granted and obligations imposed written into a format that applications, search engines, and other kinds of technology can understand. We developed a standardized way to describe licenses that software can understand called CC Rights Expression Language (CC REL) to accomplish this. When this metadata is attached to CC licensed works, someone searching for a CC licensed work using a search engine (e.g., Google advanced search) can more easily discover CC licensed works.

Taken from: Creative Commons. “3.1 License Design and Terminology.” Creative Commons Certificate for Educators, Academic Librarians, and Open Culture, https://certificates.creativecommons.org/cccertedu/chapter/3-1-license-design-and-terminology/. Accessed 11 July 2024.

Creative Commons Licenses consist of some combination of four (4) basic elements. These elements combine to form six (6) CC license options.

	Attribution or BY. All licenses include this element.
	Non-commercial or NC. This designates that the work can only be used for non-commercial purposes (uses not intended for “commercial advantage or monetary gain”).
	Share Alike or SA. This indicates that adaptations based on the work must be licensed under the same or compatible license.
	No Derivatives or ND. This means that users cannot share adaptations of the work. (Users may make adaptations for private use but users may not distribute those adaptations.)

Copyright and CC licenses provide a range of “openness” to users. Licensors can choose how open or permissive a license to apply, from All Rights Reserved to Some Rights Reserved to No Rights Reserved (material dedicated to the Public Domain).

Creative Commons License Spectrum, by Shaddim. CC BY 4.0

Users can combine material under different CC licenses, but with some caveats:

• If the combination is not an adaptation, then you can combine any CC-licensed content with proper attribution and compliance with any non-commercial restrictions.
• If the combination is an adaptation, there are limitations on how SA materials can be reused. Use the chart above to determine how CC licensed materials can be combined.
• Note: ND licenses do not permit remixing except for private use.
• See the Creative Commons FAQ re: Combining Material under Different Licenses.

CC License Compatibility Chart / CC BY 4.0

This guide is built upon work by the University of Arizona Libraries, © 2019 The Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of The University of Arizona, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

It is released under the same Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License which grants you permission to copy this guide, in part or in its entirety, in your own LibGuide as long as you follow license terms and attribute Cassie Wagner, Morris Library, Southern Illinois University Carbondale. There’s no need to ask for permission.