3 About Creative Commons licences
Creative Commons licences give everyone from individual creators to large institutions a standardized way to grant the public permission to use their creative work under copyright law. From the reuser’s perspective, the presence of a Creative Commons license on a copyrighted work answers the question, “What can I do with this work?”
What is Creative Commons?
Creative Commons (CC) is a licence applied to a work protected by Copyright. It’s a way of easily sharing copyrighted work without giving up total control or spending countless hours granting permissions.
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Users only need to seek the creator’s permission to use the work in a way not permitted by the licence.
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CC licences allow works to be used for educational purposes. As a result, instructors and students can freely copy, share, and sometimes modify and remix a CC work without seeking the creator’s permission.
CC licences are not an alternative to copyright. They are built on copyright and similar rights and last for the same length of term as these rights. The licences enable rights holders to specify a standard set of terms and conditions regarding sharing and reuse that best suit their needs while ensuring that the authors are credited for their work.
Videos
Watch these videos that explain Creative Commons licences in more detail.
What is an open license and how does it work? [2:10] by The Council of Chief State School Officers is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license for the video, and Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License for the music.
Creating OER and Combining Creative Commons Licences [9:16] by Florida Virtual Campus is licensed under a Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported
Creative Commons Basics [1:36] by Pollack Library eLearning is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Creative Commons Licensing Explained [3:45] by Max Noble, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (reuse allowed)
Infographic: What does Creative Commons mean?
