Types of Creative Commons Licenses

There are several variations of creative commons license but before getting into that, let's talk about what is creative commons.

Creative Commons (CC) licensing is a type of public copyright license that enables the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted work. A Creative Commons license is used when an author wants to give other people the right to share, use, and build upon a work that they have created.

Creative Commons licenses are composed of various combinations of four main conditions:

1. Attribution (BY): Others can copy, distribute, display, and perform the work and derivative works based upon it, but only if they give the creator or licensor the credits in the manner specified by these.

2. ShareAlike (SA): Others can distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs the original work.

3. NonCommercial (NC): Others can copy, distribute, display, and perform the work and derivative works based upon it, but not for commercial purposes.

4. NoDerivatives (ND): Others can copy, distribute, display, and perform only verbatim copies of the work, not derivative works based upon it.

Creative Commons licenses are easy to use and understand, and they are also built into a range of platforms that people use every day, from Wikipedia to Flickr to SoundCloud. This makes it simple for creators to share their works under the terms they want, and for others to find and use content that is free and legal to use.

CC BY (Attribution): Allows others to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work and derivative works based upon it, but only if they give the author or licensor the credits in the manner specified by these. This is the most flexible CC license in terms of what others can do with the works.

CC BY-SA (Attribution-ShareAlike): Allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms. This license is often compared to open-source software licenses.

CC BY-ND (Attribution-NoDerivs): Allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as the work is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to the author.

CC BY-NC (Attribution-NonCommercial): Allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge the author and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.

CC BY-NC-SA (Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike): Allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms.

CC BY-NC-ND (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs): Allows others to download the works and share them with others as long as they credit the author, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.

CC0 (No Rights Reserved): Allows creators to waive all their copyright and related rights, effectively placing their work in the public domain.