What does Creative Commons mean?

By Martin Missfeldt, Bildersuche.org

Creatives

Creators enrich the Internet with their works. They may be artists, musicians, filmmakers, writers, etc.

Problem: what license?

Many creative people want to share their works for use, but…

• Artist: “How do I explain the license conditions?”
• User: “What does he mean exactly?”

Licensing agreements are complicated.

Solution: Creative Commons

Creative Commons (CC) is a nonprofit organization. It offers pre-licensing agreements. CC licenses are free, but…

Four possible conditions are important to check:

Attribution (BY)

• The author’s name must be listed under or next to the work!
• Symbolized with a person icon

No Derivatives (ND)

• Use exactly as is! No editing!
• Symbolized with an equals sign icon

Non Commercial (NC)

• No revenue by using the work.
• Symbolized with a money sign with a slash through it icon

Share Alike (SA)

• Share: Gladly. But only under these same conditions!
• Symbolized with an arrow making a counter-clockwise circle icon

As a result of the combination of these conditions, there are six different CC licenses:

CC BY

• Only attribution (name, sometimes with link to creator’s homepage)

CC BY-ND

• Attribution and no editing (no derivatives)

CC BY-NC

• Attribution and no commercial use

CC BY-NC-ND

• Attribution, no commercial use and no editing

CC BY-NC-SA

• Attribution, no commercial use and share alike

CC BY-SA

• Attribution and share alike

Important!

• Creative Commons does NOT mean that the works are public domain!
• At a minimum, the AUTHOR has to be mentioned!

Advantages of CC licenses

• Sharing of your works
• When using CC licenses user feel more secure that the works could be shared without asking directly
• Make a statement: free access to digital culture
• Interest in the processing and derivatives
• Enlargement of the world’s material pool

How to use CC licenses?

Include near your work a reference to the appropriate license (as graphics or text shortcut) and link it to the appropriate license agreement page. More about this: http://creativecommons.org/choose/

Sources: creativecommons.org, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons

This infographic is licensed under CC-BY-SA: feel free to use and share it, but please mention the author. www.bildersuche.org/en/creative-commons-infographic