A Complete Guide to Creative Commons

Every work in the world defaults to “All Rights Reserved” copyright — no use without permission. Creative Commons (CC) is a “Some Rights Reserved” license: the creator states in advance that others may use the work, under specified conditions.

Every CC license is built from 4 basic conditions, combined into 6 standard licenses.

The 4 basic conditions

BY — Attribution

Credit must always be given to the creator. This condition is mandatory in every CC license, with no exception.

NC — NonCommercial

No use for profit, no selling, no use in business promotion. Personal, educational, and charitable use are permitted.

ND — NoDerivatives

The work must be used entirely as-is. No editing, no alteration, no translation.

SA — ShareAlike

If you modify the work, the modified version must be released under the same license as the original.

The 6 standard licenses

Ordered from most permissive to most restrictive.

CC BY

Use, modify, and use commercially — the only condition is crediting the creator. The most open of the six.

CC BY-SA

Use, modify, and use commercially, with credit — and any modified version must also be released under CC BY-SA. (Wikipedia uses this license.)

CC BY-ND

Use and use commercially, with credit — but the work must stay entirely as-is. No modification.

CC BY-NC

Use and modify, with credit — but no commercial use.

CC BY-NC-SA

Use and modify, with credit, no commercial use — and any modified version must be released under the same license.

CC BY-NC-ND

The most restrictive of the licenses that still permit use — download or share as-is only. No modification, no commercial use, credit required.

CC0 — full waiver

CC0 is not a license in the same sense as the six above — it is the creator waiving all rights. Anyone may use, modify, or sell the work immediately, with no credit required at all.

How to credit properly: TASL

Writing “Photo credit: Google” or “Cr. YouTube” does not count as proper attribution under the international standard. The correct method uses the TASL formula:

• T (Title) — the work’s title, if it has one
• A (Author) — the creator’s name or account username
• S (Source) — a link to where the work came from
• L (License) — the specific CC license, with a link to its terms

Example: “Cat photo (T) by John Doe (A) from Flickr (S) under CC BY-NC 2.0 (L).”

How to release your own work under CC

No registration required — just state the license at the corner of an image, at the end of a clip, or on a web page, to announce under what terms others may reuse it.

Every piece of writing on this site uses CC BY-SA by default, unless a specific piece states otherwise.