Creative Commons licence as a solution for the rights issue

Instead of retaining full control over your work through copyright, as a rights holder, you can assign a Creative Commons licence to it. This allows others to freely reuse the work under certain conditions.
In this article, you’ll learn:

• What Creative Commons licences are there?
• What is allowed and what is not allowed with these licences?

When choosing a licence, a Creative Commons licensor answers the following questions:

1. Do I want my name to be stated with each use of my work?
2. Are other people allowed to adapt my work?
3. Are other people allowed to use my work for commercial purposes?
4. If the work is allowed to be adapted, does it need to be made available under the same conditions? This is the ‘ShareAlike’ principle that helps to grow open content over time. ShareAlike is inspired by the GNU General Public License, often used in open source software projects.

The answers to the questions give the creator an insight into the conditions under which their work can be used.

What licences exist?

Attribution - CC BY

This licence allows others to:

• share the work – copy, distribute and transmit via any medium or file format
• adapt the work – remix, modify and create derived works
• for all purposes, including commercial purposes

under the following condition:

• Attribution – the user must state the creator of the work, provide a link to the licence, and indicate if the work has been adapted.

This is the most accommodating licence offered. It is recommended for encouraging maximum distribution and use of licensed content.

Attribution-ShareAlike - CC BY-SA

This licence allows others to:

• share the work for all purposes (including commercial purposes) – copy, distribute and transmit via any medium or file format
• adapt the work – remix, modify and create derived works

under the following conditions:

• Attribution – the user must state the creator of the work, provide a link to the licence, and indicate if the work has been adapted. You may do this in an appropriate way without creating the impression that the licensor approves of your work or your use of the work.
• ShareAlike – if you have remixed, modified or built upon the work, you must distribute the adapted content under the same licence as the original work.

This licence is often compared to the ‘copyleft’ free and open source software licences. All derived works may also be used for commercial purposes. This licence is used by Wikipedia and is recommended for all content that benefits from integration in Wikipedia or similar projects.

Please note: the work must be distributed under identical conditions, and not prevent the whole product in which the work is used from being covered by the same licence. For example: when photographs covered by CC BY-SA are distributed, the press (e.g. a newspaper) can use these photos on condition that they (i) state the name of the photographer with the publication of the photo, and (ii) inform the readership that this photo can be used freely under the terms of a CC BY-SA licence. This can be done by stating ‘NAME + CC BY-SA’ under the photo. The newspaper publisher’s copyright does then not extend to the photos in question.

Attribution-NoDerivatives - CC BY-ND

This licence allows others to:

• share the work – copy, distribute and transmit via any medium or file format for all purposes, including commercial purposes

under the following conditions:

• Attribution – the user must state the creator of the work, provide a link to the licence, and indicate if the work has been adapted. You may do this in an appropriate way without creating the impression that the licensor approves of your work or your use of the work.
• NoDerivatives – you may not distribute the modified content if you have remixed, adapted or built upon the work.

Attribution-NonCommercial - CC BY-NC

This licence allows others to:

• share the work – copy, distribute and transmit via any medium or file format
• adapt the work – remix, modify and create derived works

under the following conditions:

• Attribution – the user must state the creator of the work, provide a link to the licence, and indicate if the work has been adapted. You may do this in an appropriate way without creating the impression that the licensor approves of your work or your use of the work.
• NonCommercial – you may not use the work for commercial purposes.

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike - CC BY-NC-SA

This licence allows others to:

• share the work – copy, distribute and transmit via any medium or file format
• adapt the work – remix, modify and create derived works

under the following conditions:

• Attribution – the user must state the creator of the work, provide a link to the licence, and indicate if the work has been adapted. You may do this in an appropriate way without creating the impression that the licensor approves of your work or your use of the work.
• NonCommercial – you may not use the work for commercial purposes.
• ShareAlike – if you have remixed, modified or built upon the work, you must distribute the adapted content under the same licence as the original work.

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives - CC BY-NC-ND

This licence allows others to:

• share the work – copy, distribute and transmit via any medium or file format

under the following conditions:

• Attribution – the user must state the creator of the work, provide a link to the licence, and indicate if the work has been adapted. You may do this in an appropriate way without creating the impression that the licensor approves of your work or your use of the work.
• NonCommercial – you may not use the work for commercial purposes.
• NoDerivatives – you may not distribute the modified content if you have remixed, adapted or built upon the work.

This licence is the most restrictive of the six licences.

Sources and references

• Explanation of the Creative Commons licences

Authors: Sanne Van Bellingen (PACKED vzw), Bart Magnus (meemoo)