Frequently Asked Questions – Creative Commons

These FAQs are designed to provide a better understanding of Creative
Commons, our licenses, and our other legal and technical tools. They
provide basic information, sometimes about fairly complex topics, and
will often link to more detailed information.

• Other CC FAQs: CC0 Public Domain Dedication and Public Domain Mark.
• “Licensor”, “rights holder”, “owner”, and “creator” may be used
  interchangeably to refer to the person or entity applying a CC
  license.
• Information about the licenses is primarily made with reference to
  the 4.0 suite, but earlier license versions are mentioned where they
  differ.
• Have a question that isn’t answered here? Contact
  [email protected].

Creative Commons does not provide legal advice. This FAQ is for
informational purposes and is not a substitute for legal advice. It may
not cover important issues that affect you. You should consult with your
own lawyer if you have questions.

About CC

What is Creative
Commons and what do you do?

Creative Commons is a global nonprofit organization that enables
sharing and reuse of creativity and knowledge through the provision of
free legal tools. Our legal tools help those who want to encourage reuse
of their works by offering them for use under generous, standardized
terms; those who want to make creative uses of works; and those who want
to benefit from this symbiosis. Our vision is to help others realize the
full potential of the internet. CC has affiliates all over the world
who help ensure our licenses work internationally and who raise
awareness of our work.

Although Creative Commons is best known for its licenses, our work
extends beyond just providing copyright licenses. CC offers other legal
and technical tools that also facilitate sharing and discovery of
creative works, such as CC0, a public domain
dedication for rights holders who wish to put their work into the public
domain before the expiration of copyright, and the Public Domain
Mark, a tool for marking a work that is in the worldwide public
domain. Creative Commons licenses and tools were designed specifically
to work with the web, which makes content that is offered under their
terms easy to search for, discover, and use.

For more information about CC, our main website contains in-depth
information about the
organization, its staff
and board of directors, its history, and
its supporters.
You can also read CC case studies
to learn about some of the inspiring ways CC licenses and tools have
been used to share works and support innovative business models. You can
find regularly updated information about CC by visiting the blog.

Is Creative Commons
against copyright?

Absolutely not. CC has responded to
claims to the contrary. CC licenses are copyright licenses, and
depend on the existence of copyright to work. CC licenses are legal
tools that creators and other rights holders can use to offer certain
usage rights to the public, while reserving other rights. Those who want
to make their work available to the public for limited kinds of uses
while preserving their copyright may want to consider using CC licenses.
Others who want to reserve all of their rights under copyright law
should not use CC licenses.

That said, Creative Commons recognizes the need for change in
copyright law, and many members of the Creative Commons community are
active participants in the copyright reform movement. For more
information, see our statement in support of
copyright reform.

What does “Some Rights
Reserved” mean?

Copyright
grants to creators a bundle of exclusive rights over their creative
works, which generally include, at a minimum, the right to reproduce,
distribute, display, and make adaptations. The phrase “All Rights
Reserved” is often used by owners to indicate that they reserve all of
the rights granted to them under the law. When copyright expires, the
work enters the public domain,
and the rights holder can no longer stop others from engaging in those
activities under copyright, with the exception of moral rights reserved
to creators in some jurisdictions. Creative Commons licenses offer
creators a spectrum of choices between retaining all rights and
relinquishing all rights (public domain), an approach we call “Some
Rights Reserved.”

No. Creative Commons is not a law firm and does not provide legal
advice or legal services. CC is similar to a self-help service that
offers free, form-based legal documents for others to use. These FAQ
answers many of the most common questions. There is also specialized
information available on the following pages:

While CC does provide this informational guidance about its licenses
and other tools, this information may not apply to your particular
situation, and should never be taken as legal advice.

If you’re looking for legal advice about using CC licenses and other
tools, we recommend contacting the Creative Commons affiliate in your jurisdiction. CC
affiliates are highly connected to the communities of copyright lawyers
in their countries. We also offer a list of lawyers and organizations who have
identified themselves as willing to provide information to others about
CC licensing issues. However, please note that CC does not provide
referral services, and does not endorse or recommend any person on that
list.

Does
Creative Commons collect or track material licensed under a CC
license?

No, CC does not collect content or track licensed material. However,
CC builds technical tools that help the public search for and use works
licensed under our licenses and other legal tools, and many others have
built such tools as well. CC Search is one tool
developed by CC to help the public discover works offered under Creative
Commons licenses on the internet via CC-aware search engines and
repositories.

What do the Creative
Commons buttons do?

The CC buttons are a shorthand way to convey the basic permissions
associated with material offered under CC licenses. Creators and owners
who apply CC licenses to their material can download and apply
those buttons to communicate to users the permissions granted in
advance. When the material is offered online, the buttons should usually
link out to the human-readable license deeds (which, in turn, link to
the license itself).

May I use the
Creative Commons logo and buttons?

You may download high
resolution versions of the Creative Commons logos and use them in
connection with your work or your website, provided you comply with our
policies. Among other
things, if you use the logos on a website or on your work, you may not
alter the logos in any respect—such as by changing the font, the
proportions, or the colors. CC’s buttons, name, and corporate logo (the
“CC” in a circle) are trademarks of Creative Commons. You cannot use
them in ways not permitted by our policies unless you first receive
express, written permission. This means, for example, that you cannot
(without our permission) print your own buttons and t-shirts using CC
logos, although you can purchase them in CC’s store.

I love Creative
Commons. How can I help?

Please support CC by making a donation through our support page. Donations
can be handled through PayPal or by credit card. You can also support CC
by visiting our store.

CC always welcomes your feedback, which you can provide by emailing
info at creativecommons dot org.
You can also participate in CC’s email discussion
lists and share feedback and ideas in one of those forums.

If you are a software developer, sysadmin, or have other technical
expertise, please join our developer
community and help build the tools that build the commons.

Finally, one of the best ways to support CC is by supporting our
causes yourself. Follow our blog to find out about
current issues where you can help get involved and spread the word, and
advocate for free and open licensing in your own communities.

Why
does Creative Commons run an annual fundraising campaign? What is the
money used for and where does it go?

Creative Commons is a global nonprofit organization that enables
sharing and reuse of creativity and knowledge through free legal tools,
with affiliates all over the world who help ensure our licenses work
internationally and raise awareness about our work. Our tools are free,
and our reach is wide.

In order to…

• continue developing our licenses and public domain tools to make
  sure they are legally and technically up-to-date around the world,
• help creators implement these tools on websites through best
  practices and individual assistance,
• enable CC licensing on major content-sharing platforms,
• enhance CC-licensed resource search and discovery,
• advocate for CC licensing and open policies in education, science, and culture, and
• myriad other activities we’re forgetting to mention, such as all the
  everyday boring but essential operations that go into running an
  organization

…we need $ to make it all happen! For more information, please take a
look at our Annual
Report.

Creative Commons has always relied on the generosity of both
individuals and organizations to fund its ongoing operations. It is
essential we have the public’s support because it is the creators and
users of CC material who make our tools relevant in this digital age.
They depend on the tools and services CC provides through their reuse
and remix of the rich, open resources available on Wikipedia, Flickr, SoundCloud, Vimeo, Europeana, MIT OpenCourseWare, the Library of Science, Al Jazeera, and YouTube—just to name a few. Many of these
people donate $10, $25, or $50 to CC, to help keep it up and running so
we can continue to provide our tools and services for free, as a
nonprofit organization. The more people who donate to CC, the more
independent it will remain.

General License Information

What are Creative Commons
licenses?

Creative Commons
licenses provide an easy way to manage the copyright terms that
attach automatically to all creative material under copyright. Our
licenses allow that material to be shared and reused under terms that
are flexible and legally sound. Creative Commons offers a core suite of
six copyright licenses. Because there is no single “Creative Commons
license,” it is important to identify which of the six
licenses you are applying to your material, which of the six
licenses has been applied to material that you intend to use, and in
both cases the specific version.

All of our licenses require that users provide attribution (BY) to
the creator when the material is used and shared. Some licensors choose
the BY license, which requires attribution to the creator as the only
condition to reuse of the material. The other five licenses combine BY
with one or more of three additional license elements: NonCommercial
(NC), which prohibits commercial use of the material; NoDerivatives
(ND), which prohibits the sharing of adaptations of the material; and
ShareAlike (SA), which requires adaptations of the material be released
under the same license.

CC licenses may be applied to any type of work, including educational resources, music, photographs, databases, government and public sector information, and many other types of material. The only categories
of works for which CC does not recommend its licenses are computer
software and hardware. You should also not apply Creative Commons
licenses to works that are no
longer protected by copyright or are otherwise in the public domain.
Instead, for those works in the worldwide public domain, we recommend
that you mark them with the Public Domain Mark.

How do CC licenses operate?

CC licenses are operative only when applied to material in which a copyright
exists, and even then only when a particular use would otherwise not be
permitted by copyright. Note that the latest version of CC licenses also
applies to rights similar to copyright, such as neighboring
rights and sui
generis database rights. Learn
more about the scope of the licenses. This means that CC license
terms and conditions are not triggered by uses
permitted under any applicable exceptions and limitations to
copyright, nor do license terms and conditions apply to elements of
a licensed work that are in the public domain. This also means that CC
licenses do not contractually impose restrictions on uses of a work
where there is no underlying copyright. This feature (and others) distinguish
CC licenses from some other open licenses like the ODbL and ODC-BY, both of which
are intended to impose
contractual conditions and restrictions on the reuse of databases in
jurisdictions where there is no underlying copyright or sui generis
database right.

All CC licenses are non-exclusive: creators
and owners can enter into additional, different licensing
arrangements for the same material at any time (often referred to as
“dual-licensing” or “multi-licensing”). However, CC
licenses are not revocable once granted unless there has been a
breach, and even then the license is terminated only for the breaching
licensee.

Please note that CC0 is not a license; it is a public domain
dedication. When CC0 is applied to a work, copyright no longer applies
to the work in most jurisdictions around the world. Therefore,
references to dual licensing arrangements like the one above are
inapplicable to CC0.

There are also videos
and comics that offer visual descriptions of how CC licenses
work.

Which
is the latest version of the licenses offered by Creative Commons?

In November 2013, Creative Commons published the version 4.0 license
suite. These licenses are the most up-to-date licenses offered by CC,
and are recommended over all prior versions. You can see how the
licenses have been improved over time on the license
versions page. 4.0 has been drafted to be internationally valid, and
will have official translations becoming available after
publication.

Do
Creative Commons licenses affect exceptions and limitations to
copyright, such as fair dealing and fair use?

No. By design, CC licenses do not reduce, limit, or restrict any
rights under exceptions and limitations to copyright, such as fair use or fair dealing. If
your use of CC-licensed material would otherwise be allowed because of
an applicable exception or limitation, you do not need to rely on the CC
license or comply with its terms and conditions. This
is a fundamental principle of CC licensing.

Who
gives permission to use material offered under Creative Commons
licenses?

Our licenses and legal tools are intended for use by anyone who holds
copyright in the material. This is often, but not always, the
creator.

Creative Commons offers licenses and tools to the public free of
charge and does not require that creators or other rights holders
register with CC in order to apply a CC license to a work. This means
that CC
does not have special knowledge of who uses the licenses and for
what purposes, nor does CC have a way to contact creators beyond means
generally available to the public. CC has no authority to grant
permission on behalf of those persons, nor does CC manage those rights
on behalf of others.

If you would like to obtain additional permissions to use the work
beyond those granted by the license that has been applied, or if you’re
not sure if your intended use is permitted by the license, you should contact
the rights holder.

Are
Creative Commons licenses enforceable in a court of law?

Creative Commons licenses are drafted to be enforceable around the
world, and have been enforced in court in
various jurisdictions. To CC’s knowledge, the licenses have never been
held unenforceable or invalid.

CC licenses contain a “severability” clause. This allows a court to
eliminate any provision determined to be unenforceable, and enforce the
remaining provisions of the license.

What
happens if someone applies a Creative Commons license to my work without
my knowledge or authorization?

CC alerts
prospective licensors they need to have all necessary rights before
applying a CC license to a work. If that is not the case and someone has
marked your work with a CC license without your authorization, you
should contact that person and tell them to remove the license from your
work. You may also wish to contact a lawyer. Creative Commons is not a
law firm and cannot represent you or give you legal advice, but there
are lawyers
who have identified themselves as interested in representing people in
CC-related matters.

What
are the international (“unported”) Creative Commons licenses, and why
does CC offer “ported” licenses?

One of CC’s goals is ensuring that all of its legal tools work
globally, so that anyone anywhere in the world can share their work on
globally standard terms. To this end, CC offers a core suite of six
international copyright licenses (formerly called the “unported”) that
are drafted based largely on various international
treaties governing copyright, taking into account as many
jurisdiction-specific legal issues as possible. The latest version (4.0)
has been drafted with particular attention to the needs of international
enforceability.

For version 3.0 and earlier, Creative Commons has also offered ported
versions of its six core licenses for many jurisdictions (which usually
correspond to countries, but not always). These ported licenses are
based on the international license suite but have been modified to
reflect local nuances in the expression of legal terms and conditions,
drafting protocols, and language. The ported licenses and the
international licenses are all intended to be legally effective
everywhere. CC expects that few, if any, ports will be necessary for
4.0.

CC recommends that you take advantage of the improvements in the 4.0
suite explained on the license
versions page unless there are particular
considerations you are aware of that would require a ported
license.

Can
I include a work licensed with CC BY in a Wikipedia article even though
they use a CC BY-SA license?

Yes. Works licensed under CC BY may be incorporated into works that
are licensed under CC BY-SA. For example, you may incorporate a CC BY
photograph into a Wikipedia article so long as you keep all copyright
notices intact, provide proper attribution, and otherwise comply with
the terms of CC BY. Learn more about the
licenses.

Can
governments and intergovernmental organizations (“IGOs”) use CC
licenses?

Yes, anyone may use CC licenses for material they own, including
governments and IGOs, and these institutions frequently use CC licenses on their copyrightable
material. The reasons for doing so vary, and often include a desire
to maximize the impact and utility of works for educational and
informational purposes, and to enhance transparency.

Creative Commons licenses have desirable features that
make them the preferred choice over custom licenses. CC licenses are
standard and interoperable, which means material published by different
creators using the same type of CC license can be translated, modified,
compiled, and remixed without legal barriers depending on the particular
license applied. Creative Commons licenses are also
machine-readable, allowing CC-licensed works to be easily discovered via
search engines such as Google. These features maximize distribution,
reuse, and impact of works published by governments and IGOs.

Though we encourage anyone to use version 4.0, which is
internationally valid and may be used by individuals as well as
organizations, there is an IGO ported version of 3.0 that IGOs may also
use. Read more about how governments
and IGOs
use and leverage CC licenses and legal tools, considerations for using
our licenses, and how
they operate in the IGO context.

Can
children apply Creative Commons licenses to work they create?

This issue depends largely on the laws in place where the child
lives. In the United States, children can be copyright holders and are
entitled to license their works in the same manner as adults. However,
they may have the right to disaffirm certain types of legal agreements,
including licenses. In many parts of the United States, for example,
children have the ability to disaffirm some types of agreements under
certain circumstances once they reach the age where they are considered
adults within the relevant jurisdiction. We are unaware of any attempt
by a licensor to exercise the disaffirmation right with respect to a CC
license applied to a work.

What
are the official translations of the CC licenses and CC0?

Official language translations will be available for the 4.0 licenses
and CC0. When you license your own work, you may use or link to the text
of any available official translation. When you reuse CC-licensed
material, you may comply with the license conditions by referring to any
available official translation of the license. These translations are
linguistic translations of the English version which adhere as closely
as possible to the original text. These translations have been done by
our affiliates in accordance with the Legal
Code Translation Policy and with the oversight and detailed review
of the CC legal team. Note that these are equivalents of the original
English; these translations are not jurisdiction
ported versions. You may find a list of all available translations
here.

For versions 3.0 and earlier, official translations are not
available. Some unofficial translations were made for informational
purposes only. (Jurisdiction ported versions of version 3.0 and earlier
were generally published in the official language(s) of the appropriate
jurisdiction. However, the ported licenses are not
equivalent to the international licenses, and do not serve as
substitutable references for purposes of complying with the terms and
conditions of the licenses.)

What is a BY-SA Compatible
License?

A BY-SA Compatible License is a license officially designated by
Creative Commons pursuant to the ShareAlike
compatibility process. Once deemed a BY-SA Compatible License, you
may use the license to publish your contributions to an adaptation of a
BY-SA work. To see the list of BY-SA Compatible Licenses, click here. Learn
more about ShareAlike compatibility here.

For Licensors

Choosing a license

What
things should I think about before I apply a Creative Commons
license?

Applying a Creative Commons license to your material is a serious
decision. When you apply a CC license, you give permission to anyone to
use your material for the full duration of applicable copyright and
similar rights.

CC has identified some
things that you should consider before you apply a CC license, some
of which relate to your ability to apply a CC license at all. Here are
some highlights:

How should I decide
which license to choose?

If you are unsure which license best suits your needs, there are
plenty of resources to help rights holders choose the right CC license.
CC Australia has developed a flow
chart that may be useful in helping you settle on the right license
for your work. You can also read
case studies of others who are using CC licenses. The CC community
can also respond to questions, and may have already addressed issues you
raise. The CC community email discussion lists
and discussion archives may be useful resources.

Finally, you may also want to consult
with a lawyer to obtain advice on the best license for your
needs.

Why
should I use the latest version of the Creative Commons licenses?

The latest version of the Creative Commons licenses is version 4.0.
You should always use the latest version of the Creative Commons
licenses in order to take advantage of the many improvements described
on the license
versions page. In particular, 4.0 is meant to be better suited to
international use, and use in many different contexts, including sharing
data.

What if
CC licenses have not been ported to my jurisdiction?

All CC licenses are intended to work worldwide. Unless you have a
specific reason to use a ported
license, we suggest you consider using one of the international
licenses. 4.0 will support official translations of the international
license for those who wish to use the licenses in another language.

As of version 4.0, CC is discouraging ported versions, and has placed
a hold on new porting projects following its publication until sometime
in 2014. At that point, CC will reevaluate the necessity of porting in
the future.

Should
I choose an international license or a ported license?

We recommend that you use a version 4.0 international license. This
is the most up-to-date version of our licenses, drafted after broad
consultation with our global network of affiliates, and it has been
written to be internationally valid. There are currently no ports
of 4.0, and it is planned that few, if any, will be created.

All of the ported licenses are at version 3.0 or earlier, which means
licensors using those licenses do not have the benefit of the improvements made in the 4.0
license suite. But even before considering the improvements in 4.0,
there are several reasons why the international licenses may be preferable for rights
holders, even if the licenses have been ported to their jurisdiction. As
an organization, CC itself licenses all of its own content under an
international license because, among other reasons, the international
licenses are essentially jurisdiction-neutral while remaining effective
globally. The neutral nature of the international licenses appeals to
many people and organizations, particularly for use in connection with
global projects that transcend political borders. Finally, it is
important to know that some of the ported licenses contain a choice of
law provision, which may be undesirable for your needs.

However, some rights holders still choose a license ported to their
local jurisdiction because they believe their needs are not sufficiently
met by the international licenses. If the licenses have been ported to
your jurisdiction and you feel that the ported licenses better account
for some aspect of local legislation, then you may wish to consider a
ported license.

You can use
our jurisdiction database to compare international licenses and
ports on these issues and others, such as whether a ported license
contains a choice of law or forum selection clause.

Why should
I use the license chooser? What if I don’t?

Licensors are not required to use the CC license chooser or
provide any information about themselves or their material when applying
a CC license to their material. However, using the license chooser
enables licensors to take advantage of the “machine readable” layer of
CC licenses. Our machine-readable
code enhances the discoverability of your work because that code allows
software, search engines, and other tools to recognize when something is
licensed under a CC license. The code also facilitates attribution: when
users click on the CC button placed on your site, they will be linked
directly to HTML code that they can cut and paste to provide
attribution.

How do
I apply a Creative Commons license to my material?

For online material: Select the license that is
appropriate for your material from the CC license
chooser and then follow the instructions
to include the HTML code. The code will automatically generate a license
button and a statement that your material is licensed under a CC
license. If you are only licensing part of a work (for example, if you
have created a video under a CC license but are using a song under a
different license), be sure to clearly mark
which parts are under the CC license and which parts are not. The HTML
code will also include metadata, which allows the material to be
discovered via Creative
Commons-enabled search engines.

For offline material: Identify which license you
wish to apply to your work and either (a) mark
your work with a statement such as, “This work is licensed under the
Creative Commons [insert description] License. To view a copy of the
license, visit [insert url]”; or (b) insert the applicable license
buttons with the same statement and URL link.

For third-party platforms: Many media
platforms like Flickr, YouTube, and SoundCloud have built-in Creative
Commons capabilities, letting users mark their material with a CC
license through their account settings. The benefit of using this
functionality is that it allows other people to find your content when
searching on those
platforms for CC-licensed material. If the platform where you’re
uploading your content does not support CC licensing, you can still
identify your content as CC-licensed in the text description of your
content.

Legally, these three options are the same. The only difference
between applying a CC license offline rather than online is that marking
a work online with metadata will ensure that users will be able to find
it through CC-enabled search engines.

CC offers resources on the best
practices for marking your material and on how
to mark material in different media (.pdf).

Do
I need to register with Creative Commons before I obtain a license?

No. CC offers its licenses, code, and tools to the public free of
charge, without obligation. You do not need to register with Creative
Commons to apply a CC license to your material; it is legally valid as
soon as you apply it to any material you have the legal right to
license.

CC does not require or provide any means for creators or other rights
holders to register use of a CC license, nor
does CC maintain a database of works distributed under Creative
Commons licenses. CC also does not require registration of the work with
a national copyright agency.

What
do the terms and conditions of a CC license apply to?

Although CC licenses get attached to tangible works (such as photos
and novels), the license terms and conditions apply to the licensor’s copyright
in the licensed material. The public is granted “permission to exercise”
those rights in any
medium or format. It is the expression that is protected by
copyright and covered by the licenses, not any particular medium or
format in which the expression is manifested. This means, for example,
that a CC license applied
to a digitized copy of a novel grants the public permission under
copyright to use a print version of the same novel on the same terms and
conditions (though you may have to purchase the print version from a
bookstore).

Can I apply
a Creative Commons license to software?

We recommend against using Creative Commons licenses for software.
Instead, we strongly encourage you to use one of the very good software
licenses which are already available. We recommend considering licenses
listed as free by the Free Software
Foundation and listed as
“open source” by the Open
Source Initiative.

Unlike software-specific licenses, CC licenses do not contain
specific terms about the distribution of source code, which is often
important to ensuring the free reuse and modifiability of software. Many
software licenses also address patent rights, which are important to
software but may not be applicable to other copyrightable works.
Additionally, our licenses are currently not compatible with the major
software licenses, so it would be difficult to integrate CC-licensed
work with other free software. Existing software licenses were designed
specifically for use with software and offer a similar set of rights to
the Creative Commons licenses.

Version 4.0 of CC’s Attribution-ShareAlike (BY-SA) license is one-way
compatible with the GNU General Public License
version 3.0 (GPLv3). This compatibility mechanism is designed for
situations in which content is integrated into software code in a way
that makes it difficult or impossible to distinguish the two. There are
special considerations required before using this compatibility
mechanism. Read more about it here.

Also, the CC0 Public Domain Dedication is
GPL-compatible and acceptable for software. For details, see
the relevant CC0 FAQ entry.

While we recommend against using a CC license on software itself, CC
licenses may be used for software documentation, as well as for separate
artistic elements such as game art or music.

Can I apply
a Creative Commons license to databases?

Yes. CC licenses can
be used on databases. In the 4.0 license suite, applicable sui
generis database rights are licensed under the same license
conditions as copyright. Many governments
and others use CC licenses for data and databases.

For more detailed information about how CC licenses apply to data and
databases, visit our detailed Data FAQ.

Could I
use a CC license to share my logo or trademark?

Creative Commons does not recommend using a CC license on a logo or
trademark. While a logo or trademark can be covered by copyright laws in
addition to trademark laws, the special purposes of trademarks make CC
licenses an unsuitable mechanism for sharing them in most cases.
Generally, logos and trademarks are used to identify the origin of a
product or service, or to indicate that it meets a specific standard or
quality. Allowing anyone to reuse or modify your logo or trademark as a
matter of copyright could result in your inability to limit use of your
logo or trademark selectively to accomplish those purposes. Applying a
CC license to your trademarks and logos could even result in a loss of
your trademark rights altogether. See below
for more about how to license material that includes a trademark or
logo.

There are other ways to share your logos and trademarks widely while
preserving your trademark rights. Establishing a trademark policy that
grants permissions in advance for limited uses is one common
alternative. Mozilla,
Wikimedia,
and Creative Commons
have each published policies that accomplish the dual objectives of
encouraging reuse and preserving trademark rights.

May
I apply a Creative Commons license to a work in the public domain?

CC licenses should not be applied to works in the worldwide public
domain. All CC licenses are clear that they do
not have the effect of placing restrictions on material that would
otherwise be unrestricted, and you cannot remove a work from the public
domain by applying a CC license to it. If you want to dedicate your own
work to the public domain before the expiration of applicable copyright
or similar rights, use CC’s legally robust public
domain dedication. If a work is already in the worldwide public
domain, you should mark it with CC’s Public Domain Mark.

Note that, in some cases, a work may be in the public domain under
the copyright laws of some jurisdictions but not others. For example,
U.S. government works are in the public domain under the copyright law
of the United States, but may be protected by copyright laws in other
jurisdictions. A CC license applied to such a work would be effective
(and the license restrictions enforceable) in jurisdictions where
copyright protection exists, but would not be operative if U.S.
copyright law is determined to be the applicable law.

Creators may also apply Creative Commons licenses to material they
create that are adapted from public domain works, or to remixed
material, databases, or collections that include work in the public
domain. However, in each of these instances, the license does not affect
parts of the work that are unrestricted by copyright or similar rights.
We strongly encourage you to mark
the public domain material, so that others know they are also free
to use this material without legal restriction.

If
I take a photograph of another work that is in the public domain, can I
apply a CC license to my photo?

That depends. You can apply a CC license to your photograph if your
photograph constitutes a work of original authorship, a question that
varies by jurisdiction. As a general matter, your photograph must
involve some creative choices, such as background setting, lighting,
angle, or other mark of creativity. In the United States, an exact
photographic copy of a public domain work is not subject to copyright
because there is no originality (even if there is effort or “sweat”
exerted in its creation).

In practice, if your photograph is sufficiently creative to attract
copyright protection, people will likely have to comply with the license
conditions if they reproduce your entire photograph in verbatim form,
absent some applicable exception or limitation such as fair use.
However, they would not have to comply with the license
conditions if they reproduce only those parts of the work in the public
domain. This is because your copyright in the adaptation only
extends to the material you contributed, not to the underlying work.

May
I apply a CC license to my work if it incorporates material used under
fair use or another exception or limitation to copyright?

Yes, but it is important to prominently mark any third party material
you incorporate into your work so reusers do not think the CC license
applies to that material. The CC license only applies to the rights you
have in the work. For example, if your CC-licensed slide deck includes a
Flickr image you are using pursuant to fair use, make sure to identify
that image as not being subject to the CC license. For more information
about incorporating work owned by others, see our page about marking third party content. Read more
considerations for licensors here.

Rights other than copyright

Can I
use CC licenses to license rights other than copyright?

CC licenses are copyright licenses, but the latest version of CC
licenses also cover certain other rights similar to copyright, including
performance,
broadcast, and sound recording rights, as well as sui
generis database rights. You may apply a 4.0 license to material
subject to any of those rights, whether or not the material is also
subject to copyright. Note that the scope of prior versions of CC
licenses was more limited. You should refer to our license versions page for details.

How
do Creative Commons licenses affect my moral rights, if at all?

As a general matter, all CC licenses preserve moral rights to the
extent they exist (they do not exist everywhere), but allow uses of the
work in ways contemplated by the license that might otherwise violate
moral rights. If you apply a 4.0 license to your material, you agree to
waive or not assert any moral rights you have, to the limited extent
necessary to allow the public to exercise the licensed rights. This is
designed to minimize the effect of moral rights on licensees’ ability to
use the work, and ensure that the license works internationally as
intended. The attribution requirement contained in all of our licenses
is intended to satisfy the moral right of attribution, but it must be
adhered to whether or not the applicable jurisdiction recognizes moral
rights.

Earlier versions of the license are also intended
to minimize the effect of moral rights on otherwise-permitted uses, but
the language in the licenses differs. Additionally, jurisdiction ports
of earlier versions of CC licenses often contain versions of the moral
rights language designed to account for moral rights legislation in a
particular jurisdiction. If you are applying a ported license to your
work, you may wish to review the moral rights language in the particular
license.

You can also compare how different jurisdictions have implemented
this provision, or browse the license versions page to compare the
treatment of this issue across the different versions of the CC
licenses.

Can
I offer material under a CC license that has my trademark on it without
also licensing or affecting rights in the trademark?

Yes, you may offer material under a Creative Commons license that
includes a trademark indicating the source of the work without affecting
rights in the trademark, because trademark rights are not licensed by
the CC licenses. However, applying the CC license may create an implied
license to use the trademark in connection with the licensed material,
although not in ways that require permission under trademark law. To
avoid any uncertainty, Creative Commons recommends that licensors who
wish to mark material with trademarks or other branding materials give
notice to licensors expressly disclaiming application of the license to
those elements. This can be done in the copyright notice, but could also
be noted on the website where the work is published.

The following is an example notice:

“The text of and illustrations in this document are licensed by
Red Hat under a Creative Commons Attribution–Share Alike 3.0 Unported
license (”CC-BY-SA”). . . . Red Hat, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the
Shadowman logo, JBoss, MetaMatrix, Fedora, the Infinity Logo, and RHCE
are trademarks of Red Hat, Inc., registered in the United States and
other countries. For guidelines on the permitted uses of the Fedora
trademarks, refer to https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal:Trademark_guidelines.”

How
are publicity, privacy, and personality rights affected when I apply a
CC license?

When you apply the latest version (4.0) of a CC license to your
material, you also agree to waive or not assert any publicity, privacy, or personality rights that you
hold in the material you are licensing, to the limited extent necessary
for others to exercise the licensed rights. For example, if you have
licensed a photograph of yourself, you may not assert your right of
privacy to have the photo removed from further distribution. (Under the
3.0 and earlier licenses, this is implied but not explicit.) If you do
not wish to license these rights in this way, you should not apply a CC
license to the material where this is a concern.

If there are any third parties who may have publicity, privacy, or
personality rights that apply, those rights are not affected by your
application of a CC license, and a reuser must seek permission for
relevant uses. If you are aware of any such third party rights in the
material you are licensing, we recommend marking the material to give notice to reusers.

What
is the difference between plagiarism and copyright infringement? And
what role do CC licenses play to address plagiarism?

Plagiarism involves the copying of someone else’s creation or ideas
and passing them off as one’s own without attribution to the original
author. Plagiarism is generally a matter of ethics and is dealt with
primarily through social norms, ethics policies, academic standards, and
codes of conduct. Plagiarism will usually give rise to professional or
academic sanctions, and will not necessarily be the subject of legal
proceedings.

Copyright infringement is a matter of law and will give rise to legal
sanctions. An action may be considered plagiarism but not copyright
infringement and vice versa, or both at the same time. For example,
copying part of a text and not crediting the author could be considered
plagiarism in an academic context, but not copyright infringement if the
reproduction is allowed under an exception or if the text is in the
public domain (subject to the application of moral rights). Conversely,
copying part of a text without authorization and without benefiting from
an exception but with correctly crediting the author could be copyright
infringement but not plagiarism.

Creative Commons licenses are not designed to address issues that
fall outside the scope of copyright law, although, when the licenses
were first developed, Creative Commons expected that the attribution
requirement would contribute to reducing instances of plagiarism.
Regardless, activities such as plagiarism are not directly governed by
the application of CC licenses. That said, the attribution requirement
and the obligation to indicate modifications made to a work can
alleviate authors’ concerns over plagiarism and serve to assist in the
enforcement of attribution and citation in the scholarly and academic
contexts.

For more information, read our blog post Why
Sharing Academic Publications Under “No Derivatives” Licenses is
Misguided.

Business models

Can
I apply a CC license to low-resolution copies of a licensed work and
reserve more rights in high-resolution copies?

You may license your copyright or distribute your work under more
than one set of terms. For example, you may publish a photograph on your
website, but only distribute high-resolution copies to people who have
paid for access. This is a practice CC supports. However, if the
low-resolution and high-resolution copies are the same work under applicable copyright law,
permission under a CC license is not limited to a particular copy, and
someone who receives a copy in high resolution may use it under the
terms of the CC license applied to the low-resolution copy.

Note that, although CC strongly discourages the practice, CC cannot
prevent licensors from attempting to impose restrictions through
separate agreements on uses the license otherwise would allow. In that
case, licensees may be contractually restricted from using the
high-resolution copy, for example, even if the licensor has placed a CC
license on the low-resolution copy.

Can
I use a Creative Commons license if I am a member of a collecting
society?

Creators and other rights holders may wish to check with their collecting
society before applying a CC license to their material. Many rights
holders who are members of a collecting society can waive the right to
collect royalties for uses allowed under the license, but only to the
extent their societies allow.

Collecting societies in several countries including Australia,
Finland, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Norway, Spain, Taiwan, and the
Netherlands take an assignment of rights from creators in present and
future works and manage them, so that the societies effectively become
the owner of these rights. (In France it is called a “mandate” of rights
but has similar practical effect.) Creators in these jurisdictions who
belong to collecting societies may not be able to license their material
under CC licenses because the collecting societies own the necessary
rights, not the creators. CC is working with several collecting societies and
running pilot programs that allow creators to use CC licenses in some
circumstances.

If you are already a member of a collecting society and want to use
CC licenses, you are welcome to encourage your collecting society to
give you the option of Creative Commons licensing.

Can
I still make money from a work I make available under a Creative Commons
license?

Yes. One of our goals is to encourage creators and rights holders to
experiment with new ways to promote and market their work. There are
several possible ways of doing this.

CC’s NonCommercial (NC) licenses allow rights holders to
maximize distribution while maintaining control of the commercialization
of their works. If you want to reserve the right to commercialize your
work, you may do this by choosing a license with the NC condition. If
someone else wants to use your work commercially and you have applied an
NC license to your work, they must first get your permission. As the
rights holder, you may still sell your own work commercially.

You may also use funding models that do not depend on using an NC
license. For example, many artists and creators use crowdfunding to fund
their work before releasing it under a less restrictive license. Others
use a “freemium” model where the basic content is free, but extras such
as a physical printed version or special access to a members-only
website are for paying customers only.

For more information and ideas, The Power of Open presents case
studies of artists, businesspeople, and organizations who use CC.

Alterations and
additions to the license

Can I
insist on the exact placement of the attribution credit?

No. CC licenses allow for flexibility in the way credit is provided
depending on the medium, means, and context in which a licensee is
redistributing licensed material. For example, providing attribution to
the creator when using licensed material in a blog post may be different
than doing so in a video remix. This flexibility facilitates compliance
by licensees and reduces uncertainty about different types of
reuse—minimizing the risk that overly onerous and inflexible attribution
requirements are simply disregarded.

Can I change the
license terms or conditions?

Yes—but if you change the terms and conditions of any Creative
Commons license, you must no longer call, label, or describe the
license as a “Creative Commons” or “CC” license, nor can you use
the Creative Commons
logos, buttons, or other trademarks in connection with the modified
license or your materials. Keep in mind that altering terms and
conditions is distinct from waiving
existing conditions or granting additional permissions than those in
the licenses. Licensors may always do so, and many choose to do so using
the CC+ protocol to readily signal the waiver or
additional permission on the CC license deed.

CC does not assert copyright in the text of its licenses, so you are
permitted to modify the text as long as you do not use the CC marks to
describe it. However, we do not recommend this. We also advise against
modifying our licenses through indirect means, such
as in your terms of service. A modified license very likely will not be
compatible with the same CC license (unmodified) applied to other
material. This would prevent licensees from using, combining, or
remixing content under your customized license with other content under
the same or compatible CC licenses.

Modifying licenses creates friction that confuses users and
undermines the key benefits of public, standardized licenses. Central to
our licenses is the grant of a standard set of permissions in advance,
without requiring users to ask for permission or seek clarification
before using the work. This encourages sharing and facilitates reuse,
since everyone knows what to expect and the burden of negotiating
permissions on a case by case basis is eliminated.

Can I waive license
terms or conditions?

Yes. You may always choose to waive some license terms or conditions.
Material licensed under a CC license but with additional permissions
granted or conditions waived may be compatibly licensed with other
material under the same license. Our CC+
protocol provides a mechanism for facilitating that grant or
waiver.

Can
I enter into separate or supplemental agreements with users of my
work?

Yes. CC licenses are nonexclusive. Licensors always have the option
of entering into separate arrangements for the sharing of their material
in addition to applying a CC license. However, those different
arrangements are not “CC” or “Creative Commons” licenses.

Separate agreements: You may offer the licensed
material under other licenses in addition to the CC license (a practice
commonly referred to as “dual licensing”). For example, you may wish to
license a video game soundtrack under both a CC license and the GPL, so
that it may be used under either set of terms. A reuser may then choose
which set of terms to comply with. Or, for example, you may offer your
material to the public under a NonCommercial license, but offer
commercial permissions to fee-paying customers.

Supplemental agreements: Problems arise when
licensors design those terms or arrangements to serve not as separate,
alternative licensing arrangements but as supplemental terms having
the effect of changing the standard terms within the CC license.
While you may offer separate terms and conditions to other parties, you
should not do so in such a way that would neutralize terms of the CC
license.

Except in the limited situation where more
permissions are being granted or license conditions are waived, if
the additional arrangement modifies or conflicts with the CC license
terms, then the resulting licensing arrangement is no longer a CC
licensing arrangement. To avoid confusing those who may mistakenly
believe the work is licensed under standard CC terms, we must insist
that in these instances licensors not use our trademarks, names, and
logos in connection with their custom licensing arrangement.

It should be noted that any agreements you make with other parties
only have an effect on the other parties to that agreement, and do not
apply to anyone else receiving the licensed material. For example, if
there are terms of use that apply to visitors to your website on which
you host CC-licensed material, your terms of use may apply to visitors
to that website, but not to anyone who receives copies of the
CC-licensed material elsewhere. Even for the visitors to your website,
any separate terms and conditions do not become part of the license—they
remain a separate contractual agreement, and violation of this agreement
does not constitute copyright infringement.

After licensing

What
happens if I offer my material under a Creative Commons license and
someone misuses them?

Please see our guide on What to do if Your
CC-Licensed Work is Misused.

What
can I do if I offer my material under a Creative Commons license and I
do not like the way someone uses it?

Please see our guide on What to do if Your
CC-Licensed Work is Misused.

What
do I do if someone tries to place effective technological measures (such
as DRM) on my CC-licensed material?

The use of any
effective technical protection measures (such as digital rights
management or “DRM”) by licensees to prevent others from exercising
the licensed rights is prohibited.

Not all kinds of encryption or access limitations are prohibited by the licenses.
For example, sending content via email and encrypting it with the
recipient’s public key does not restrict use of the work by the
recipient. Likewise, limiting recipients to a particular set of users
(for example, by requiring a username and password to enter a site) does
not restrict further use of the content by the recipients. In these
examples, these things do not prevent the recipient from exercising all
of the rights granted by the license, including the right to
redistribute it further.

If someone is applying effective technological measures to your
CC-licensed material that do restrict exercise of the licensed rights
(such as applying DRM that restricts copying), this is a violation of
the license terms unless you have chosen to grant this permission
separately.

When
I release my work under a CC license in one format (e.g., .pdf), can I
restrict licensees from changing it to or using it in other
formats?

No. CC licenses grant permission to use the licensed material in any
media or format regardless of the format in which it has been made
available. This is true even if you have applied a NoDerivatives license
to your work. Once a CC license is applied to a work in one format or
medium, a licensee may use the same work in any other format or medium
without violating the licensor’s copyright.

What if I
change my mind about using a CC license?

CC licenses are not revocable. Once something has been published
under a CC license, licensees may continue using it according to the
license terms for the duration of applicable copyright and similar
rights. As a licensor, you may stop distributing under the CC license at
any time, but anyone who has access to a copy of the material may
continue to redistribute it under the CC license terms. While you cannot
revoke the license, CC licenses do provide a mechanism for licensors to ask that others using
their material remove the attribution information. You should think
carefully before choosing a Creative Commons license.

For Licensees

Before using CC-licensed
material

What
should I think about before using material offered under a Creative
Commons license?

CC offers six core
licenses, each of which grants a different set of permissions.
Before you use CC-licensed material, you should review the
terms of the particular license to be sure your anticipated use is
permitted. If you wish to use the work in a manner that is not permitted
by the license, you should contact the rights holder (often the creator)
to get permission first, or look for an alternative work that is
licensed in a way that permits your anticipated use. Note that if you
use material in a way that is not permitted by the applicable license
and your use is not otherwise permitted by an applicable copyright
exception or limitation, the license is automatically terminated and you may be liable for
copyright infringement, even if you are eligible to have your rights
reinstated later.

Before using material offered under a Creative Commons license, you
should know that CC licenses only grant permissions needed under
copyright and similar rights, and there may be additional rights you
need to use it as intended. You should also understand that licensors do
not offer warranties or guarantees about the material they are licensing
unless expressly indicated otherwise. All materials are licensed “AS IS”
and a disclaimer of warranties applies unless expressly provided
otherwise. If you want to ask for a warranty or guarantee about rights
to use the material, you should talk with the licensor before using
it.

Does
a Creative Commons license give me all the rights I need to use the
work?

It depends. CC licenses do not license rights other than copyright
and similar rights (which include sui
generis database rights in version 4.0). For example, they do not
license trademark or patent rights, or the publicity, personality, and privacy rights of third
parties. However, licensors agree to waive or not assert any moral rights,
publicity rights, personality rights, or privacy rights they themselves
hold, to the limited extent necessary to allow exercise of the licensed
rights. Any rights outside of the scope of the license may require
clearance (i.e., permission) in order to use the work as you would
like.

Additionally, creative works sometimes incorporate works owned by
others (known as “third party content”), often used pursuant to a CC
license or under an exception or limitation to copyright such as fair
use in the U.S. You should make sure you have permission to use any
third party content contained in the work you want to use, or that your
use is otherwise allowed under the laws of your jurisdiction,
particularly in cases such as fair use where your right to use the
content depends on the particular context in which you plan to use
it.

All CC licenses contain a disclaimer of warranties, meaning that the
licensor is not guaranteeing anything about the work, including whether
she owns the copyright, has received permission to include third-party
content within her work, or secured other rights such as through the use
of model releases if a person’s image is used in the work. You may wish to obtain legal advice before using
CC-licensed material if you are not sure whether you have all the rights
you need.

What
if there are sui generis database rights that apply to my use of a
CC-licensed database?

In the somewhat limited circumstances where sui generis database
rights apply to your use, special conditions apply and there are more
specific considerations you should be aware of. Under 4.0, sui generis
database rights are licensed alongside copyright, but the treatment in
earlier versions of the license varies. A fuller explanation of these
variations and related considerations is available in the Data
FAQ.

Where can
I find material offered under a CC license?

If you are looking for material offered under a Creative Commons
license, CC Search is a
good starting point. There is also a directory of organizations and individuals who use
CC licenses. Some media sites, such as Flickr, have search filters for
material licensed using CC’s licenses.

Be sure to confirm that the material you want to use is actually
under a CC license, as search results may sometimes be misleading.

Are Creative
Commons works really free to use?

Yes. While many if not most CC-licensed works are available at no
cost, some licensors charge for initial access to CC-licensed works—for
example, by publishing CC-licensed content only to subscribers, or by
charging for downloads. However, even if you have paid an access charge,
once you have a copy of CC-licensed material, you may make any further
uses permitted by the license without paying licensing fees.

(If you wish to make uses that are not permitted by the license—for
example, making a commercial use of an NC-licensed photo—the licensor
may charge for those additional rights.)

What
should I know about differences between the international licenses and
the ported licenses?

As a licensee, you should always read and understand the relevant
license’s legal code before using CC-licensed material, particularly if
you are using material that is licensed using a ported license with which you are unfamiliar. Our
porting process involved adapting the international licenses to the
legal framework of different jurisdictions, and in that process slight
adjustments may have been made that you should make yourself aware of in
advance of using the material. You can find more information about the
ported licenses in the Jurisdiction Database.

There are currently no ported versions of 4.0, and we expect there
will be few, if any, in the future. All official translations of the 4.0
international licenses are equivalent: you may substitute one for
another depending on your preferred language.

However, the ported versions of 3.0 and earlier sometimes contain
small differences from the international license depending on the ways
in which they have been adapted to their jurisdictions. For example, a
handful of the ported licenses contain provisions specifying which laws
will apply in the event the licensor chooses to enforce the license, and
a few of the ported licenses contain forum selection clauses.

General license compliance

What
happens if I want to use the material in a way that is not permitted by
the license?

Contact the rights holders to ask for permission. Otherwise, unless an exception or limitation to copyright
applies, your use of the material may violate the Creative Commons
license. If you violate the terms of the license, your rights to use the
material will be automatically terminated, and you may be liable for
copyright infringement.

Do
I always have to comply with the license terms? If not, what are the
exceptions?

You need to comply with the license terms if what you are doing would
otherwise require permission from the rights holder. If your use would
not require permission from the rights holder because it falls under an
exception or limitation, such as fair use, or because the material has
come into the public domain, the license does not apply, and you do not
need to comply with its terms and conditions. Additionally, if you are
using an excerpt small enough to be uncopyrightable, the license does
not apply to your use, and you do not need to comply with its terms.

However, if you are using excerpts of CC-licensed material which
individually are minimal and do not require license compliance, but
together make up a significant copyrightable chunk, you must comply with
the license terms. For example, if you quote many individual lines from
a poem across several sections of a blog post, and your use is not a
fair use, you must comply with the license even though no individual
line would have been a substantial enough portion of the work to require
this.

Attribution

How
do I properly attribute material offered under a Creative Commons
license?

All CC licenses require users to attribute the creator of licensed
material, unless the creator has waived
that requirement, not supplied a name, or asked that her name be removed. Additionally, you
must retain a copyright notice, a link to the license (or to the deed),
a license notice, a notice about the disclaimer of warranties, and a URI
if reasonable. For versions prior to 4.0, you must also provide the
title of the work. (Though it is not a requirement in 4.0, it is still
recommended if one is supplied.)

You must also indicate if you have modified the work—for example, if you have taken an
excerpt, or cropped a photo. (For versions prior to 4.0, this is only
required if you have created an adaptation by contributing your own
creative material, but it is recommended even when not required.) It is
not necessary to note trivial alterations, such as correcting a typo or
changing a font size. Finally, you must retain an indication of previous
modifications to the work.

CC licenses have a flexible attribution requirement, so there is not
necessarily one correct way to provide attribution. The proper method
for giving credit will depend on the medium and means you are using, and
may be implemented in any reasonable manner. Additionally, you may
satisfy the attribution requirement by providing a link to a place where
the attribution information may be found.

While the attribution requirements in the license are the minimum
requirement, we always recommend that you follow the best practices for the kind of use you
are making. For example, if you are using scientific data marked with
CC0, you are not required to give attribution at all, but we recommend
that you give the same credit you would give to any other source—not
because the license requires it, but because that is the standard for
letting others know the source of the data.

The CC website offers some best practices to help you attribute properly, and
the CC Australia team
has developed a helpful
guide to attributing CC-licensed material (.pdf) in different
formats. Note that the attribution and marking requirements vary
slightly among license versions. See here for a chart comparing the specific
requirements.

Do
I need to be aware of anything else when providing attribution?

Yes. You need to be careful not to imply any sponsorship,
endorsement, or connection with the licensor or attribution party
without their permission. Wrongfully implying that a creator, publisher,
or anyone else endorses you or your use of a work may be unlawful.
Creative Commons makes the obligation not to imply endorsement explicit
in its licenses. In addition, if the licensor of a work requests that you remove the identifying credit,
you must do so to the extent practical.

Additionally, when you are using a work that is an adaptation of one
or more pre-existing works, you may need to give credit to the creator(s) of the pre-existing
work(s), in addition to giving credit to the creator of the
adaptation.

Do
I always have to attribute the creator of the licensed material?

You must attribute the creator when you provide material to the
public by any means that is restricted by copyright or similar rights.
If you are using the material personally but are not making it or any
adaptations of it available to others, you do not have to attribute the
licensor. Similarly, if you are only distributing the material or
adaptations of it within your company or organization, you do not have
to comply with the attribution requirement. Learn more about when compliance with the license is not
required.

Using licensed material

Does
my use violate the NonCommercial clause of the licenses?

CC’s NonCommercial (NC) licenses prohibit uses that are “primarily
intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or monetary
compensation.” This is intended to capture the intention of the NC-using
community without placing detailed restrictions that are either too
broad or too narrow. Please note that CC’s definition does not turn on
the type of user: if you are a nonprofit or charitable organization,
your use of an NC-licensed work could still run afoul of the NC
restriction, and if you are a for-profit entity, your use of an
NC-licensed work does not necessarily mean you have violated the term.
Whether a use is commercial will depend on the specifics of the
situation and the intentions of the user.

In CC’s experience, it is usually relatively easy to determine
whether a use is permitted, and known conflicts are relatively few
considering the popularity of the NC licenses. However, there will
always be uses that are challenging to categorize as commercial or
noncommercial. CC cannot advise you on what is and is not commercial
use. If you are unsure, you should either contact the rights holder for
clarification, or search for works that permit commercial uses.

CC has a brief guide to interpretation of the NC license
that goes into more detail about the meaning of the NC license and some
key points to pay attention to. Additionally, in 2008, Creative Commons published results from a survey on
meanings of commercial and noncommercial use generally. Note that the
results of the study are not intended to serve as CC’s official
interpretation of what is and is not commercial use under our licenses,
and the results should not be relied upon as such.

Can
I take a CC-licensed work and use it in a different format?

Yes. When any of the six CC licenses is applied to material,
licensees are granted permission to use the material as the license
allows, whatever the media or format chosen by the user when it is used
or distributed further. This is true even in our NoDerivatives licenses.
This is one of a very few default rules established in our licenses, to
harmonize what may be different outcomes depending on where CC-licensed
material is reused and what jurisdiction’s copyright law applies.

This means, for example, that even if a creator distributes a work in
digital format, you have permission to print and share a hard copy of
the same work.

How
do I know if a low-resolution photo and a high-resolution photo are the
same work?

As with most copyright questions, it will depend on applicable law.
Generally, to be different works under copyright law, there must be
expressive or original choices made that make one work a separate and
distinct work from another. The determination depends on the standards
for copyright in the relevant jurisdiction.

Under U.S. copyright law, for example, mechanical reproduction of a
work into a different format is
unlikely to create a separate, new work. Consequently, digitally
enhancing or changing the format of a work absent some
originality, such as expressive choices made in the enhancement or
encoding, will not likely create a separate work for copyright purposes.
The creative bar is low, but it is not non-existent. Accordingly, in
some jurisdictions releasing a photograph under a CC license will give
the public permission to reuse the photograph in a different
resolution.

Can
I reuse an excerpt of a larger work that is licensed with the NoDerivs
restriction?

The NoDerivs licenses (BY-ND and BY-NC-ND) prohibit reusers from
creating adaptations. What constitutes an adaptation,
otherwise known as a derivative work, varies slightly based on the law
of the relevant jurisdiction.

Incorporating an unaltered excerpt from an ND-licensed work into a
larger work only creates an adaptation if the larger work can be said to
be built upon and derived from the work from which the excerpt was
taken. Generally, no derivative work is made of the original from which
the excerpt was taken when the excerpt is used to illuminate an idea or
provide an example in another larger work. Instead, only the
reproduction right of the original copyright holder is being exercised
by person reusing the excerpt. All CC licenses grant the right to
reproduce a CC-licensed work for noncommercial purposes (at a minimum).
For example, a person could make copies of one chapter of an ND-licensed
book and not be in violation of the license so long as other conditions
of the license are met.

There are exceptions to that general rule, however, when the excerpts
are combined with other material in a way that creates some new version
of the original from which the excerpt is taken. For example, if a
portion of a song was used as part of a new song, that may rise to the
level of creating an adaptation of the original song, even though only a
portion of it was used and even if that portion was used as-is.

Can
I use effective technological measures (such as DRM) when I share
CC-licensed material?

No. When you receive material under a Creative Commons license, you
may not place additional terms and conditions on the reuse of the work.
This includes using effective technological measures (ETMs) that would
restrict a licensee’s ability to exercise the licensed rights.

A technological measure is considered an ETM if circumventing it
carries penalties under laws fulfilling obligations under Article 11 of
the WIPO Copyright Treaty adopted on December 20, 1996, or similar
international agreements. Generally, this means that the
anti-circumvention laws of various jurisdictions would cover attempts to
break it.

For example, if you remix a CC-licensed song, and you wish to share
it on a music site that places digital copy-restriction on all uploaded
files, you may not do this without express permission from the licensor.
However, if you upload that same file to your own site or any other site
that does not apply DRM to the file, and a listener chooses to stream it
through an app that applies DRM, you have not violated the license.

Note that merely converting material into a different format that is
difficult to access or is only available for certain platforms does not
violate the restriction; you may do this without violating the license
terms.

Can I
share CC-licensed material on password-protected sites?

Yes. This is not considered to be a prohibited measure, so long as
the protection is merely limiting who may access the content, and does
not restrict the authorized recipients from exercising the licensed
rights. For example, you may post material under any CC license on a
site restricted to members of a certain school, or to paying customers,
but you may not place effective technological measures
(including DRM) on the files that prevents them from sharing the
material elsewhere.

(Note that charging for access may not be permitted with NC-licensed
material; however, it is not disallowed by the restriction on ETMs.)

Can I
share CC-licensed material on file-sharing networks?

Yes. All CC licenses allow redistribution of the unmodified material
by any means, including distribution via file-sharing networks. Note
that file-trading is expressly considered to be noncommercial for
purposes of compliance with the NC licenses. Barter of NC-licensed
material for other items of value is not permitted.

Do
I need to worry about website terms of service when I share CC-licensed
content on social media platforms?

It is always a good idea to familiarize yourself with the terms and
conditions that apply to any service you are using. Generally speaking,
most social media platforms allow users to keep the copyright they have
in their content and ask users to grant them a copyright license to use
that content for purposes of providing their service. In some cases,
platforms may also ask for a license to use your content in advertising
and other promotions of their service. Creative Commons licenses do not
allow sublicensing, which means you cannot grant a license to a platform
with respect to the rights in any CC-licensed content you do not own.
For example, if you share on Facebook a CC-licensed image you downloaded
from Flickr, you cannot grant Facebook any rights to that image under
copyright. However, it is unusual for social media platforms to require
you to own or control the copyright on all content you share on their
sites. Instead, they often simply require that you have the rights to
post it. As with content in the public domain or copyrighted content you
are using under fair use or some other exception or limitation to
copyright, when you share third party CC-licensed content on a platform,
you aren’t granting that platform any rights to the content under
copyright. When sharing CC-licensed content, always remember to provide
proper attribution and otherwise comply with the relevant license
conditions.

Don’t forget that a CC license only speaks to copyright, and there
may be other rights (for example, privacy rights) that are relevant when
sharing on social media.

Additional
restrictions on licensed material

What
if I received CC-licensed material encumbered with effective
technological measures (such as DRM)?

If you have received material under a CC license that is encumbered
with effective technological measures (such as digital rights management
or DRM), you may or may not be permitted to break it, depending on the
circumstances. By releasing material under a CC license, the licensor
agrees not to assert any rights she may have to prevent the
circumvention of effective technological measures. (Under the 3.0 and
earlier licenses, this is implied but not explicit.) However, if she has
uploaded it to a site or other distribution channel that itself applies
such measures, that site may have the right to prevent you from breaking
them, even though the licensor herself cannot do so.

Note that anti-circumvention laws can impose criminal liability in
some jurisdictions.

What
if I have received CC-licensed material with additional
restrictions?

It is possible that CC-licensed material will appear on platforms
that impose terms in addition to the copyright license (though Creative Commons strongly discourages restrictions that
interfere with exercise of the licensed rights). These additional
terms do not form part of the license for the work and may not be
applicable to distributions of the work outside of the platform. For
example, if you download CC-licensed material from a site that does not
permit downloading, you may be breaking the terms of use of the site,
but you are not infringing the CC license. See our guide to Modifying the CC licenses for more guidance and
information.

Combining and adapting CC
material

When is my use
considered an adaptation?

Whether a modification of licensed material is considered an adaptation for the
purpose of CC licenses depends primarily on the applicable copyright
law. Copyright law reserves to an original creator the right to create
adaptations of the original work. CC licenses that allow for adaptations
to be shared—all except BY-ND and BY-NC-ND—grant permission to others to
create and redistribute adaptations when doing so would otherwise
constitute a violation of applicable copyright law. Generally, a
modification rises to the level of an adaptation under copyright law
when the modified work is based on the prior work but manifests
sufficient new creativity to be copyrightable, such as a translation of
a novel from one language to another, or the creation of a screenplay
based on a novel.

Under CC licenses, synching music in timed relation with a moving
image is always considered an adaptation, whether or not it would be
considered so under applicable law. Also, under version 4.0, certain
uses of databases restricted by sui generis database rights also
constitute adaptations (called “Adapted Material” in the 4.0 licenses),
whether or not they would be considered adaptations under copyright law.
For more details about adaptations in the database context, see the Data
FAQ.

Note that all CC licenses allow the user to exercise the rights
permitted under the license in any format or medium. Those changes are not
considered adaptations even if applicable law would suggest otherwise.
For example, you may redistribute a book that uses the CC BY-NC-ND
license in print form when it was originally distributed online, even if
you have had to make formatting changes to do so, as long as you do so
in compliance with the other terms of the license.

Note on terminology: throughout these FAQs, we use the
term “remix” interchangeably with “adapt.” Both are designed to mean
doing something that constitutes an adaptation under copyright law.

Can
I combine material under different Creative Commons licenses in my
work?

It depends. The first question to ask is whether doing so constitutes
an adaptation. If the combination does
not create an adaptation, then you may combine
any CC-licensed content so long as you provide attribution and comply
with the NonCommercial restriction if it applies. If you want to combine
material in a way that results in the creation of an adaptation (i.e. a
“remix”), then you must pay attention to the particular license that
applies to the content you want to combine.

The NoDerivatives licenses do not permit remixing except for private
use (the pre-4.0 licenses do not permit remixing at all, except as
allowed by exceptions and limitations to copyright). All the other CC
licenses allow remixes, but may impose limitations or conditions on how
the remix may be used. For example, if you create a remix with material
licensed under a ShareAlike license, you need to make sure that all of
the material contributed to the remix is licensed under the same license
or one that CC
has named as compatible, and you must properly credit all of the sources with the required attribution and license information.
Similarly, if you want to use a remix for commercial purposes, you cannot incorporate
material released under one of the NonCommercial licenses.

The chart below shows which CC-licensed material can be remixed. To
use the chart, find a license on the left column and on the top right
row. If there is a check mark in the box where that row and column
intersect, then the works can be remixed. If there is an “X” in the box,
then the works may not be remixed unless an exception or limitation
applies. See below for details on how remixes may be
licensed.

If
I derive or adapt material offered under a Creative Commons license,
which CC license(s) can I use?

If you make adaptations of material under a CC license
(i.e. “remix”), the original CC license always applies to the material
you are adapting even once adapted. The license you may choose for your
own contribution (called your “adapter’s license”) depends on which
license applies to the original material. Recipients of the adaptation
must comply with both the CC license on the original and your adapter’s
license.

• BY and BY-NC material

When remixing BY or BY-NC material, it is generally recommended that
your adapter’s license include at least the same license elements as the
license applied to the original material. This eases reuse for
downstream users because they are able to satisfy both licenses by
complying with the adapter’s license. For example, if you adapt material
licensed under BY-NC, your adapter’s license should also contain the NC
restriction. See the chart below for more details.

• BY-SA and BY-NC-SA material

In general, when remixing ShareAlike content, your adapter’s license
must be the same license as the license on the material you are
adapting. All licenses after version 1.0 also allow you to license your
contributions under a later version of the same license, and some also
allow ported licenses. (See the license versions page for details.) If you wish to
adapt material under BY-SA or BY-NC-SA and release your contributions
under a non-CC license, you should visit the Compatibility
page to see which options are allowed.

• BY-ND and BY-NC-ND material

The BY-ND and BY-NC-ND licenses do not permit distribution of
adaptations (also known as remixes or derivative works), and prohibits
the creation of adaptations under the pre-4.0 versions of those
licenses. Since you may not share remixes of these materials at all,
there is no compatibility with other licenses. (Note that the ND
licenses do allow you to reproduce the material in unmodified form
together with other material in a collection, as indicated in the next
FAQ.)

• Adapter’s license chart

The chart below details the CC license(s) you may use as your
adapter’s license. When creating an adaptation of material under the
license identified in the lefthand column, you may license your
contributions to the adaptation under one of the licenses indicated on
the top row if the corresponding box is green. CC does not recommend
using a license if the corresponding box is yellow, although doing so is
technically permitted by the terms of the license. If you do, you should
take additional care to mark the adaptation as involving multiple
copyrights under different terms so that downstream users are aware of
their obligations to comply with the licenses from all rights holders.
Dark gray boxes indicate those licenses that you may not use as your
adapter’s license.

Adapter’s license chart

Adapter’s license

BY

BY-NC

BY-NC-ND

BY-NC-SA

BY-ND

BY-SA

PD

Status of original work

PD

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BY

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BY-NC

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BY-NC-ND

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BY-NC-SA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BY-ND

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BY-SA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Abbreviation Key

• BY = Attribution
  only
• BY-ND = Attribution-NoDerivatives
• BY-NC-ND = Attribution-NonCommercial-
  NoDerivatives
• BY-NC = Attribution-NonCommercial
• BY-NC-SA = Attribution-NonCommercial-
  ShareAlike
• BY-SA = Attribution-ShareAlike
• PD = Dedicated to or marked as being in the public domain via one of
  our public domain
  tools, or other public domain material; adaptations of materials in
  the public domain may be built upon and licensed by the creator under
  any license terms desired.

If
I create a collection that includes a work offered under a CC license,
which license(s) may I choose for the collection?

All Creative Commons licenses (including the version 4.0 licenses)
allow licensed material to be included in collections such as
anthologies, encyclopedias, and broadcasts. You may choose a license for
the collection, however this does not change the license applicable to
the original material.

When you include CC-licensed content in a collection, you still must
adhere to the license conditions governing your use of the material
incorporated. For example, material under any of the Creative Commons
NonCommercial licenses cannot be used commercially. The table below indicates what type
of CC-licensed works you may incorporate into collections licensed for
commercial and noncommercial uses.

Original Work

Commercial Collection (BY, BY-SA, BY-ND)

NonCommercial Collection (BY-NC, BY-NC-SA, BY-NC-ND)

PD

 

 

BY

 

 

BY-NC

 

 

BY-NC-ND

 

 

BY-NC-SA

 

 

BY-ND

 

 

BY-SA

 

 

License termination

When do Creative
Commons licenses expire?

Creative Commons licenses expire when the underlying copyright and
similar rights expire.

Note that the relevant rights may expire at different times. For
example, you may have a CC-licensed song where the rights in the musical
arrangement expire before the rights in the lyrics. In this case, when
the copyright in the music expires, you may use it without being required to comply with the conditions of
the CC license; however, you must still comply with the license if
you use the lyrics.

What
happens if the author decides to revoke the CC license to material I am
using?

The CC licenses are irrevocable. This means that once you receive
material under a CC license, you will always have the right to use it
under those license terms, even if the licensor changes his or her mind
and stops distributing under the CC license terms. Of course, you may
choose to respect the licensor’s wishes and stop using the work.

How
can I lose my rights under a Creative Commons license? If that happens,
how do I get them back?

All of the CC licenses terminate if you fail to follow the license
conditions. If this happens, you no longer have a license to use the
material.

In the 4.0 licenses, your rights under the license are automatically
reinstated if you correct this failure within 30 days of discovering the
violation (either on your own or because the licensor or someone else
has told you). Under the 3.0 and earlier licenses, there is no automatic
reinstatement.

If you have lost your rights under a CC license and are not entitled
to automatic reinstatement, you may regain your rights under the license
if the licensor expressly grants you permission. You cannot simply
re-download the material to get a new license.

Note that you may still be liable for damages for copyright
infringement for the period where you were not in compliance with the
license.

Technical Questions

The Creative Commons licenses have three layers, as does
the CC0 public domain
dedication: the human-readable deed, the lawyer-readable legal code,
and the machine-readable metadata. The Public Domain
Mark is not legally operative, and so has only two layers: the
human-readable mark and machine-readable metadata.

When material is licensed using any of the CC licenses or tools, it
is highly recommended that a CC button, text,
or other marker somehow accompany it. There are many possible modes for
marking. For our licenses, people generally use the CC license chooser to
generate HTML code that can be pasted into the webpage where the
licensed material is published. CC0 and the Public Domain Mark have a
separate chooser. Many
platforms and web services such as Flickr and Drupal support CC licensing directly, allowing you
to select an appropriate license. The service then properly marks the
work for you.

CC has published some best practices for marking your CC-licensed material, and
recommends:

• Including a visual indicator (some combination of text and images)
  that the work is licensed with one of the CC licenses.
• Clearly indicating what material is covered under the CC license,
  especially if it’s presented alongside non-licensed materials.
• Including a link to the human-readable deed (which itself contains a
  link to the legal code).
• Embedding machine-readable metadata in the code of the
  license indicator or code of the licensed page.

See the marking page for more details.

What
does it mean that Creative Commons licenses are “machine-readable”?

Creative Commons has specified CC REL as a way to associate
machine-readable licensing metadata with objects offered under CC
licenses.

Before Creative Commons developed this vocabulary, it was difficult
for a machine to ascertain whether an object was marked with a CC
license. There was also no standard, predictable place to house metadata
about that license (for example, the source URL of the work or the
required mode of attribution).

Machine-readable metadata based on well-accepted metadata standards
creates a platform upon which new services and applications can be
built. Software and services can detect CC licenses and the details of
that license, as described by the metadata. For example, on many
websites and search engines such as Google and Flickr, you can run
filtered searches for works offered under specific CC licenses. In
addition, CC license deeds can automatically create copy-and-paste
attribution code so users may easily comply with the BY condition of the
licenses. When you click on a CC license or button from a
page with license metadata, you get copy-and-paste attribution HTML
within that license deed page. That HTML is based on available RDFa
metadata in the original material.

All HTML provided by the CC license chooser is
automatically annotated with metadata in RDFa format.

What is RDFa?

RDFa is a method for embedding structured data in a
web page. For more information about RDFa, see the following
resources:

• RDFa Primer:
  Bridging the Human and Data Webs
• RDFa.info
• RDFa Wiki

What
is CC REL and why does Creative Commons recommend it?

Creative Commons
Rights Expression Language (CC REL) renders information about
licenses and works machine-readable through standards that define the
semantic web. Creative Commons wants to make it easy for creators and
scientists to build upon the works of others when they choose; licensing
your work for reuse and finding properly licensed works to reuse should
be easy. CC recommends that you mark your licensed works with CC REL.
The Creative Commons license chooser provides HTML annotated with CC
REL, while the Creative Commons deeds recognize CC REL on web pages with
works offered under a CC license, and use this metadata to enhance the
deed for properly marked-up works, e.g., by providing copy and paste
HTML that includes work attribution.

For more background information on CC REL, please refer to this paper.

What
does it mean for a search engine to be CC-enabled?

Some search engines (like Google) allow
people to filter their search results by usage rights so that you can
limit your search results according to the particular CC license you
seek. For example, if you are looking for a photo to adapt, you can
filter your search to return photos that have a CC license that permits
creation of adaptations. You can generally find this search feature on
the advanced search page of your selected search engine. You can also
use CC Search, which
offers a convenient interface to search and a list of those content
providers that support searches for content based on usage rights.

Please note, however, that you should always double check to make
sure that the work you locate through a search is licensed as you
wish.

How
do I give users of my site the option to use CC licensing like Flickr
does?

Creative Commons provides tools for integrating license selection
with your site. You can find an overview at the Web Integration article
on the CC
wiki. The Partner
Interface is a good way to get started and will always have the most
up-to-date license versions and translations. However, there is also an
API available if you
want more control.

How
can I change or remove the Creative Commons search option built into the
Firefox browser?

Mozilla has included the Creative Commons search function in many
versions of Firefox along with search options for Google, Amazon, and
other popular sites. Please take a look at the Firefox
article on the CC wiki for an explanation of how to change these
features.

If you want to add or remove a particular search option, click on the
logo in the search box (for example, the CC logo or the Google logo).
This will open the pull down menu, which will allow you to select
different search providers. If you choose “Manage Search Engines,” you
will be able to add or remove search engines. You can also alter the
order in which the search providers appear on the pull down menu.

Is
Creative Commons involved in digital rights management (DRM)?

No. CC licenses are a form of rights expression, not rights
management. CC provides tools to make it easier for creators and owners
to say which rights they reserve and permissions they grant. This is
different from digital rights management (or “DRM”), which uses
technological protection measures to prevent people from using the work
in a way that the owner has not permitted.

CC licenses contain language prohibiting licensees from the use of
effective technological measures (including DRM) to prevent access to
licensed material: ”You may not offer or impose any additional or
different terms or conditions on, or apply any Effective Technological
Measures to, the Licensed Material if doing so restricts exercise of the
Licensed Rights by any such recipient.”

While licensors may apply effective technological measures (ETMs) to
their own materials, the licensor provides a limited
permission to circumvent these measures: “The Licensor waives and/or
agrees not to assert any right or authority to forbid You from making
technical modifications necessary to exercise the Licensed Rights,
including technical modifications necessary to circumvent Effective
Technological Measures.” Note that this only applies to effective
technological measures applied by licensors themselves: third parties
such as distribution platforms may still apply ETMs if the licensor
uploads there, and the license is not able to grant you permission to
circumvent it.

Legal Background

What is copyright and
why does it matter?

Copyright law grants exclusive rights to creators of original works
of authorship. National laws usually extend protections to such works
automatically once fixed in a tangible medium, prohibiting the making of
copies without the rights holder’s permission, among other things. On
the internet, even the most basic activities involve making copies of
copyrighted content. As content is increasingly uploaded, downloaded,
and shared online, copyright law is becoming more relevant to more
people than it was 20 years ago. Unfortunately, infringing
copyrights—even unintentionally or unknowingly—can lead to liability.
Successful navigation of the internet requires some understanding of
copyright law.

What is the public domain?

The public domain of copyright refers to the aggregate of those works
that are not restricted by copyright within a given jurisdiction. A work
may be part of the public domain because the applicable term of
copyright has expired, because the rights holder surrendered copyright
in the work with a tool like CC0, or because the
work did not meet the applicable standards for copyrightability.

Because the public domain depends on the copyright laws in force
within a particular territory, sometimes a work may be considered “in
the public domain” of one jurisdiction, but not in another. For example,
U.S.
government works are automatically in the public domain under U.S.
copyright law, but might be restricted by copyright in other
countries.

The Public Domain
Manifesto, the University
Libraries page, and the CC0 FAQs all contain
additional information about the public domain.

What do I need to do to
get a copyright?

Copyright in most jurisdictions attaches automatically without need
for any formality once a creative work is fixed in tangible form
(i.e. the minute you put pen to paper, take a photo, or hit the “save”
button on your computer).

In some jurisdictions, creators may be required to register with a
national agency in order to enforce copyright in court. If you would
like more information, please consult the Berne
Convention or your jurisdiction’s
copyright law.

Although you do not have to apply a copyright notice for your work to
be protected, it may be a useful tool to clearly signal to people that
the work is yours. It also tells the public who to contact about the
work.

What is an adaptation?

An adaptation is a work based on one or more pre-existing works. What
constitutes an adaptation depends on applicable law, however translating
a work from one language to another or creating a film version of a
novel are generally considered adaptations.

In order for an adaptation to be protected by copyright, most
national laws require the creator of the adaptation to add original
expression to the pre-existing work. However, there is no international
standard for originality, and the definition differs depending on the
jurisdiction. Civil law jurisdictions (such as Germany
and France)
tend to require that the work contain an imprint of the adapter’s
personality. Common law jurisdictions (such as the U.S. or Canada), on the
other hand, tend to have a lower threshold for originality, requiring
only a minimal level of creativity and “independent conception.” Some
countries approach originality completely differently. For example, Brazil’s
copyright code protects all works of the mind that do not fall within
the list of works that are expressly defined in the statue as
“unprotected works.” Consult your jurisdiction’s
copyright law for more information.

What are moral rights?

Copyright laws in many jurisdictions around the world grant creators
“moral rights” in addition to the economic or commercial right to
exploit their creative works. Moral rights protect the personal and
reputational value of a work for its creator. Moral rights differ by
country, and can include the right of attribution, the right to have a
work published anonymously or pseudonymously, and/or the right to the
integrity of the work. The moral right of integrity may provide creators
with a source for redress if an adaptation represents derogatory
treatment of their work, typically defined as “distortion or mutilation”
of the work or treatment that is “prejudicial to the honor, or
reputation of the author.” Not all jurisdictions provide for moral
rights.

The CC licenses are intended to minimize the effect of moral rights
on a licensee’s ability to use licensed material; however, in some
jurisdictions, these rights may still have an effect. CC offers some
additional information on how CC licenses may affect your moral rights.

What are neighboring rights?

Copyright provides an incentive to create works by providing
exclusive rights to creators. However, the distribution or exploitation
of a work often involves more than just the creator. For example, if
someone writes a song, someone else may perform the song, and another
may produce the recording of the song. Some jurisdictions extend
copyright to the contributions made by these persons; other
jurisdictions extend such exclusive rights in the form of neighboring
rights. Neighboring rights may include performers’ rights or
broadcasters’ rights, among others. The Rome
Convention sets forth some guidelines on the scope of neighboring
rights. Not all jurisdictions recognize neighboring rights.

What are sui generis
database rights?

Sui generis database rights grant qualifying database makers the
right to prohibit the extraction and reuse of a substantial portion of a
database. The rights are granted to database makers that make a
substantial investment of time and resources to create the database. Sui
generis database rights are primarily enacted within the European Union
and a handful of other jurisdictions.

What are collecting
societies?

Collecting
societies are copyright management organizations. Some examples of
collecting societies include ASCAP and BMI (United States), BUMA/STEMRA
(Netherlands), PRS (United Kingdom), and APRA (Australia). These
societies license works on behalf of their owners and process royalty
payments from parties using the copyrighted works.

CC offers additional information on how collecting societies might affect your rights and
your ability to apply CC licenses to your work. CC has several pilots
underway with collecting societies that have chosen to allow their
members to use CC licenses on a limited basis.

What are
publicity, personality, and privacy rights?

These terms are used differently in different jurisdictions.
Generally speaking, these rights allow individuals to control the use of
their voice, image, likeness, or other identifiable aspect of their
identity, especially for purposes of commercial exploitation. Similarly,
in some jurisdictions these rights allow people to restrict others’
ability to publish information about them without their permission.
Whether and to what extent these rights exist, and if so, how they are
labeled, varies depending on the jurisdiction.

Creative Commons licenses have a limited effect on
these rights where the licensor holds them. Where the licensor has
publicity, personality, or privacy rights that may affect your ability
to use the material as the license intends, the licensor agrees to waive
or not assert those rights. However, any such rights not held by the
licensor are not affected and may still affect your desired use of a
licensed work. If you have created a work or wish to use a work that
might in some way implicate these rights, you may need to obtain
permission from the individuals whose rights may be affected.

Data

This page supersedes Databases and Creative Commons.

Much of the potential value of data is to society at large — more
data has the potential to facilitate enhanced scientific collaboration
and reproducibility, more efficient markets, increased government and
corporate transparency, and overall to speed discovery and understanding
of solutions to planetary and societal needs.

A big part of the potential value of data, in particular its
society-wide value, is realized by use across organizational boundaries.
How does this occur legally? Many sites give narrow permission to use
data via terms of service. Much ad hoc data sharing also occurs among
researchers. And increasingly, sharing of data is facilitated by
distribution under standard, public legal tools used to manage copyright
and similar restrictions that might otherwise limit dissemination or
reuse of data, e.g. CC
licenses or the CC0 public domain
dedication.

Many organizations, institutions, and governments are using CC tools
for data. For case studies about how these tools are applied, see:

: Uses of CC Licenses with Data and Databases : Uses of CC0 with Data and Databases

Frequently
asked questions about data and CC licenses

Can databases be
released under CC licenses?

Yes, CC licenses can be used to license databases. The
most recent version (4.0) may be used to license databases subject to
copyright and, where applicable, sui generis database rights. Sui
generis database rights prevent copying and reusing of substantial parts of a database (including frequent
extraction of insubstantial parts). However unlike copyright, database
rights protect the maker’s investment, not originality.

CC does not recommend use of its NonCommercial (NC) or NoDerivatives
(ND) licenses on databases intended for scholarly or scientific use.

In addition to our licenses, the CC0 Public Domain Dedication may be used on
databases to maximize reuse of databases. When applied, the effect is to
waive all copyright and related rights in the database and its contents,
placing it as close as possible into the worldwide public domain. In
certain domains, such as science and government, there are important
reasons to consider using CC0. Waiving copyright and related rights
eliminates all uncertainty for potential users, encouraging maximal
reuse and sharing of information.

When
a CC license is applied to a database, what is being licensed?

The license terms and conditions apply to the database structure (its
selection and arrangement, to the extent copyrightable), its contents (if
copyrightable), and in those instances where the database maker has sui generis database rights then the rights that
are granted those makers. Notwithstanding, licensors can choose to
license some rather than all of the rights they have in a database.
Creative Commons advises against this practice. However, if a licensor
chooses to do so anyway, we strongly encourage licensors to clearly
demarcate what is and is not licensed. See below for more information regarding how to provide
clear notice of what is licensed.

How do I apply a
CC legal tool to a database?

Before making a database available under a CC license, a database
provider should first make sure she has all rights necessary to do so.
Often, the database provider is not the original author of the database
contents. If that is the case, the database provider should secure
separate permission from the other author(s) before publishing the
database under a CC legal tool. If a database maker decides to license
the database without securing permission from the author(s) of the
database contents, it should clearly indicate the material for which
permission has not been secured and clearly mark the material as not
being offered under the terms of the license. For more information, read
our pre-licensing
guidelines.

Database providers should also consider carefully what elements of
the database she wants covered by the CC legal tool and identify those
elements in a manner that reusers will see and understand. Please see
our [marking
page]https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/Marking_your_work_with_a_CC_license
“wikilink”) for more information on how to clearly distinguish
unlicensed content.

How
do the different CC license elements operate for a CC-licensed
database?

Under version 4.0, if an NC license has been applied then any use of
the licensed database or its contents that is restricted by copyright law or sui generis database rights requires compliance
with the NC term, even if the database is not publicly
shared. The other license elements (BY, ND, and SA, as applicable) must
be complied with only if your use is so restricted and public sharing is
involved. Learn more about how to comply when your use implicates copyright and/or sui generis database rights.

Prior CC license versions do not require compliance with the license
restrictions or conditions when only sui generis database rights (and
not copyright) are implicated. Please see below for more detail about how this works in the current and prior versions of the licenses.

Can I
conduct text/data mining on a CC-licensed database?

Yes. However, you should be aware that whether you have to comply
with the CC license terms and conditions will depend on whether the type
of mining activity you conduct implicates copyright or any applicable
sui generis database rights. If you are not exercising an exclusive
right held by the database maker, then you do not need to rely on the
license to mine. Because there are many different methods for conducting
text and data mining, however, there may be some types of mining
activities that will implicate the licensed rights.

If and only if your particular use is one that would
require permission, you should note the following:

• Permission: All six of the 4.0 licenses allow for text and
  data mining by granting express permission to privately reproduce,
  extract, and reuse the contents of a licensed database and create
  adapted databases.
• Commercial purposes: If you are conducting text and data
  mining for commercial
  purposes, you should not mine NC-licensed databases or other
  material.
• Outputs: If you publicly share the results of your mining
  activity or the data you mined, you should attribute the rights holder.
  If what you publicly share qualifies as an adaptation of the licensed
  material, you should not mine ND-licensed material. If you share an
  adaptation of material under an SA license, you must apply the same
  license to the adaptation that results.

If
your use is not one that requires permission under the license, you
may conduct text and data mining activity without regard to the above
considerations.

How
does the treatment of sui generis database rights vary in prior versions
of CC licenses?

As explained above, the current version of the CC license suite
(4.0) licenses sui generis database rights in addition to copyright and
other closely related rights. Past versions of CC licenses operate
differently with respect to sui generis database rights.

In the CC version 3.0 licenses, the legal treatment of sui generis
database rights varies, but the practical result is always the same:
compliance with the license restrictions and conditions is not required
where sui generis database rights–but not copyright–are implicated. This
means that if someone extracts a substantial portion of a CC-licensed
database and uses it in a way that does not implicate copyright (e.g.,
by rearranging purely factual data), the license does not require her to
attribute the licensor or comply with any other restrictions or
conditions, even if the database is protected by sui generis database
rights.

While this result is the same across all CC version 3.0 licenses, the
reason for this outcome varies. In the 3.0 licenses ported to the laws
of EU jurisdictions, the scope of the licenses expressly cover databases
subject to copyright and/or sui generis database rights. However, the
conditions of the license are explicitly waived when use of the licensed
work only involves the exercise of database rights.

By contrast, the 3.0 unported licenses and all other ported licenses
do not expressly license sui generis database rights. As a result, those
licenses do not apply when sui generis database rights alone are
implicated. This means a licensee may need separate permission to use
the database in a way that implicates sui generis database rights
(although arguably an implied license to exercise those rights may be
deemed granted in some jurisdictions).

More information on the underlying 3.0 policy decision the treatment
of sui generis database rights those licenses can be found on
our wiki (.pdf).

What
is the difference between the Open Data Commons licenses and the CC 4.0
licenses?

The Open
Database License (ODbL) and the Open Data Commons
Attribution License (ODC-BY) are licenses designed specifically for
use on databases and not on other types of material. There are many
differences between those licenses and CC licenses, but the most
important to be aware of relate to license scope and operation. The ODC
licenses apply only to sui generis database rights and any copyright in
the database structure, they do not apply to the individual contents of
the database. The latest version of the CC licenses on the other hand
apply to sui generis database rights and all copyright and neighboring
rights in the database structure as well as the contents. (See above for more detail about how past versions of CC
licenses vary with respect to sui generis database rights.)

Another important difference is that ODC licenses may create
contractual obligations even in jurisdictions where database rights
would not otherwise exist and but for the license permission would not
be necessary. CC has crafted its licenses to ensure that they never impose obligations where
permission is not otherwise required to use the licensed
material.

Frequently
asked questions about data, generally

Which
components of databases are protected by copyright?

With databases, there are likely four components to consider: (1) the
database model or structure, (2) the data entry and output sheet, (3)
field names, and (4) the data or other content.

The database model refers to how a database is
structured and organized, including database tables and table indexes.
The selection, coordination, and arrangement of the database is subject
to copyright if it is sufficiently original. The originality threshold
is fairly low in many jurisdictions. For example, while courts in the
United States have held that an alphabetical telephone directory was
insufficiently original to merit copyright protection, an organized
directory of Chinese-American businesses in a particular area did. These determinations are very
fact-specific (no pun intended) and vary by jurisdiction.

The data entry and output sheets contain questions,
and the answers to these questions are stored in a database. For
example, a web page asking a scientist to enter a gene’s name, its
pathway information, and its ontology would constitute a data entry
sheet. The format and layout of these sheets are protected by copyright
according to the same standard of originality used to determine if the
database model is copyrightable.

Field names describe the contents or data. For
example, “address” might be the name of the field for street address
information. These are less likely to be protected by copyright because
they often lack sufficient originality.

The data or other contents contained in the database
are subject to copyright if they are sufficiently creative. Original
poems contained in a database would be protected by copyright, but
purely factual data (such as gene names or city populations) would not.
Facts are not subject to copyright, nor are the ideas underlying
copyrighted content.

How
do I know whether a particular use of a database is restricted by
copyright?

When the database structure or its contents is subject to copyright,
reproducing, distributing, or modifying the database will often be
restricted by copyright law. However, it is important to note that some
uses of a copyrighted database will not be restricted by copyright. It
may be possible, for example, to rearrange or modify the uncopyrightable
data in a way that does not implicate the copyright in the database
structure. For example, while (as noted above) a court in the United
States held that a directory of Chinese-American businesses was
restricted by copyright, the same court went on to hold that a directory
that duplicated hundreds of its listings was not infringing because the
listings were categorized and arranged in a sufficiently dissimilar way.
In those situations, compliance with the license conditions is not
required unless the database contents are themselves restricted by
copyright.

Similarly, even where database contents are subject to copyright and
published under a CC license, use of the facts and ideas embedded within
the contents will not require attribution (or compliance with other
applicable license conditions), unless doing so implicates copyright in
the database structure as explained above. This important limitation of all CC
licenses is highlighted on the license deeds in the Notice section,
where we emphasize that compliance with the license is not required for
elements of the material in the public domain.

If
my use of a database is restricted by copyright, how do I comply with
the license?

All CC licenses require that you attribute the licensor when your use
involves public sharing. Your other obligations depend on the particular
CC license applied to the database. If it is a NC license, any regulated
use must be limited to noncommercial purposes only. If a ND is applied,
you may produce an adapted database but cannot share it publicly. If it
is a ShareAlike (SA) license, you must apply the same or a compatible license to any adaptation of the
database you share publicly.

Which
components of a database are protected by sui generis database
rights?

In contrast to copyright, sui generis database rights are designed to
protect a maker’s substantial investment in a database. In particular,
the right prevents the unauthorized extraction and reuse of a substantial portion of the contents.

How
do I know whether a particular use of a database is restricted by sui
generis database rights?

When a database is subject to sui generis database rights, extracting
and reusing a substantial portion of the database contents is
prohibited absent some express exception.

It is important to remember that sui generis database rights
exist in only a few countries outside the European
Union, such as Korea and Mexico. Generally, if you are using a
CC-licensed database in a location where those rights do not exist, you
do not have to comply with license restrictions or conditions unless
copyright (or some other licensed right) is implicated.

Note that if you are using a database in a jurisdiction where you
must respect database rights, and you receive a CC-licensed work from
someone located in a jurisdiction without database rights, you should
determine whether database rights exist and have been licensed. If so,
you need to properly mark and attribute as the license requires, since
the person from whom you received the database may not have been
required to keep that information. If you are using a licensed database
and you do not have to comply with the license terms because such rights
do not exist in your jurisdiction, we recommend that you retain this
information where possible. Doing so assists downstream reusers who are
required to provide it when they share further.

What
constitutes a “substantial portion” of a database?

There is no bright line test for what constitutes a “substantial
portion”. The answer will depend on the law in the relevant
jurisdiction. Note that what constitutes a substantial portion is
determined both quantitatively and qualitatively. Also, using several
insubstantial portions can add up to a substantial portion.

If
my use of a database is restricted by sui generis database rights, how
do I comply with the license?

If the database is released under the current version (4.0) of CC
licenses, you must attribute the licensor if you share a substantial portion of the database contents. The
other requirements depend on the particular license applied to the
database. Under the NC licenses, you may not extract and reuse a
substantial portion of the database contents for commercial
purposes. The ND licenses prohibit you from including a substantial
portion of the database contents in another publicly shared database in
which you have sui generis database rights of your own. And finally, the
SA licenses require you to apply the same or a compatible license to any database you share
publicly and in which you include a substantial portion of the licensed
database contents. Note that this does not require you
to ShareAlike any copyright or other rights you have in the individual
contents of the database.

Artificial intelligence
and CC licenses

What
are the limits on how CC-licensed works can be used in the development
of new technologies, such as training of artificial intelligence
software?

The licenses grant permission for reuse in any situation that
requires permission under copyright. There are many ways in which
CC-licensed work works and even all rights reserved works can be reused
without permission. This includes uses
that are fair uses, for example.

If someone uses a CC-licensed work with any new or developing
technology, and if copyright permission is required, then the CC license
allows that use without the need to seek permission from the copyright
owner so long as the license conditions are respected. This is one of
the enduring qualities of our licenses — they have been carefully
designed to work with all new technologies where copyright comes into
play. No special or explicit permission regarding new technologies from
a copyright perspective is required.

But
what about privacy laws, rules governing ethical research, and data
protection laws?

CC’s copyright licenses are not universal policy tools. Copyright is
the primary obstacle to reuse that our licenses solve, but there are
many other issues related to the reuse of content that our licenses do
not address and that reusers should be aware of. These can include privacy
and rules governing ethical research and the collection or use of data,
which have to be addressed and respected separate and apart from the
copyright issues that CC licenses cover.

What
attribution obligations exist when CC-licensed images are included in a
published dataset? Is linking to the original image or URI required, and
if so, is it adequate?

It depends. First, keep in mind that CC licenses never limit uses
that copyright doesn’t control. For example, as a general matter text
and data mining in the United States is considered a fair use and does
not require permission under copyright. This means that reusers engaged
in text and data mining do not have to adhere to the marking and
attribution requirements in our licenses for that activity even though
we strongly recommend they do so anyway. A second example is linking. In
some countries, linking to copyrighted content doesn’t require
permission under copyright law, which means the CC license obligations
do not come into play even though the linked content is CC-licensed.

Where a CC-licensed work is distributed as part of a database or
dataset, and assuming copyright (or in the European Union, copyright or
sui generis database rights) is triggered, then the license conditions
must be respected. This means providing the required attribution
information in a way that is reasonable under the circumstances. Our
licenses allow for some flexibility, and in some cases that may be as
simple as providing a link to the website where the relevant attribution
information is provided. Visit our marking
practices page for more information.

If
a for-profit company uses CC-licensed content under a Non Commercial
license and releases the work under terms that allow only research
purposes, is the NC restriction violated?

This depends on whether any of the uses made of the works by the
company, whether for profit or non profit, are primarily intended for
commercial advantage or monetary compensation. This is hard to know
without having all of the facts about how a work was used, whether
internally by the company for its own purposes or how the work was
distributed for further use. Visit our NC
page for more information about what constitutes commercial and non
commercial uses of works.

If NC-licensed content is redistributed to the public under an NC
license, that distribution would not violate the NC clause. (Note that
CC strongly discourages the use of any license terms other than a CC NC
license for redistributions of NC-licensed content.)

If
CC SA-licensed content is included in a database, does the entire
database have to be licensed under an SA license?

CC licenses never require a reuser of a CC-licensed work to make the
original work or resulting works (collections, derivatives, etc.)
publicly available. There are lots of private reuses of works that are
permitted by CC’s licenses that do not require compliance with their
terms. Regarding ShareAlike, the condition only applies if a work is
modified and if the work is shared publicly. In the situation where a
reuser created a dataset of photos and made it publicly available, and
assuming copyright permission is required, then what is released is
likely a collection or compilation of pre-existing works. CC licenses do
not require the collection or the compilation itself to be made
available under an SA license, even though each individual work is still
licensed individually under an SA license and if they were modified by
the distributor the modified photo would need to be licensed under the
same terms. For example, were Creative Commons to compile photographs
from a photo sharing website under a BY-SA 2.0 license and create a
database that it then publicly distributed, CC could license the
collection as a whole under a BY license, but the photographs would
continue to be licensed under BY-SA 2.0.

What,
if any, remedies, do users have if they dislike how their photos or
images have been reused?

Several remedies are potentially available. Some may be available if
the CC license terms have been violated, and others may be available
through other, separate avenues because they involve other laws or
regulations that the CC licenses do not cover. It’s important to
remember, however, that absent a violation of the license the
permissions granted under the license
remain in place and cannot be revoked.

• Under the CC licenses, even if a license condition has not been
  violated licensors can ask that attribution to them be removed so they
  can distance themselves from the reuse.
• For violations of a CC license term where the license was required
  (not a fair use, etc.) then you may have a claim for copyright
  infringement. Fortunately, in the CC community most license violations
  are handled amicably without resorting to the courts.
• For claims involving laws and regulations other than copyright,
  recourse may be available depending on your local laws.

An important starting point for any would-be sharer of content under
a CC license is to educate yourself in advance about how they work and
what rights they do and do not cover. We have many FAQs on our website. We also
provide human-readable
deeds with links to the full text
of our licenses. Additionally, all of our licenses highlight at the
beginning many considerations
that licensors should have in mind before they license, and
considerations for reusers
of works before they do so in order to avoid inadvertent
violations.

Notes