License Conditions
Attribution (BY): You must give credit to the creator of the work; this includes linking back to their work or artist page.
Share-alike (SA): If you use something with this license in your project, you must use the same license for your work as the original work.
Non-commercial (NC): You can’t make money with this work.
No derivatives (ND): You can’t modify, adapt, or build upon this work for your own project.
Creative Commons
Creative Commons is a non-profit organization that offers an alternative method for sharing one's work. Creative Commons allows creators to determine exactly how they want their work to be used by selecting a licenses comprised of at least one of four conditions. Whether you are looking for Creative Commons licensed content to use in a project or you want to give your work a CC license, this page covers the four licenses conditions, the different types of licenses, and how to create an attribution for Creative Commons content, so that you can provide proper credit in your own work.
- UD Copyright Research GuideVisit the UD Copyright research guide to learn more about copyright and fair use.
- Creative CommonsFree tools that let authors, scientists, artists, and educators easily mark their creative work with the freedoms they want it to carry. You can use CC to change your copyright terms from “All Rights Reserved” to “Some Rights Reserved.”
- Creative Commons: About the LicensesThis page explains the three layers of a CC license, the six different license types, and includes the license deeds and legal codes for each license.
- Adding Creative Commons licenses to your workCreative Commons copyright licenses are a commonly used, standardized means of giving your permission for others to use your work. This page guides content creators through the process of choosing an appropriate license.
Create an Attribution
Attributions for Creative Commons licensed content allow you to provide credit to the creator of the work you are using. Creators do not make any money when the license their content under Creative Commons, so providing attribution provides publicity, which can further increase awareness of their work.
Across the internet, you will see attributions presented differently. Unlike style guides such as MLA and APA, there is not a strict formula that you must follow for providing attribution, but there are key elements to include and best practices to follow. The following information can be used to create an attribution, especially if one is not already provided on the website.
To create an attribution, locate the title, creator, and license for the image. With Flickr and Wikimedia Commons, this information is easy to find, but it may be more difficult to locate on other sites that appear in a Google Images search.
Once you locate the necessary information, you can create an attribution, using the following formula:
[Title] by [Creator] is licensed under a [license name] license.
Click on the image to open it to full size in a new window.
Above is an image depicting how to create an attribution for a Flickr image. The attribution would read, "Brooklyn Bridge by Martin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license." Alternatively, you can abbreviate the license name. The attribution would then read, "Brooklyn Bridge by Martin is licensed under a CC BY 2.0 license.
Types of Licenses
Using the four different license conditions (attribution, share-alike, non-commercial, no-derivatives), you can build a Creative Commons license for your work, based on how you want others to use it.
- Public Domain mark- “no known copyright”: used for works that are in the public domain and therefore not restricted by copyright. This includes works in the U.S. published in 1925 or earlier.
- CC0- “no rights reserved”: given when the creator waives all rights to their work so that anyone can use it and build upon it without any restrictions under copyright or database law.
- CC-BY: you must provide credit to the creator; this includes linking to their work or artist page within the attribution.
- CC-BY-SA: you must provide credit and use the same license as the original on your own work.
- CC-BY-NC: you must provide credit and you cannot make money using this work.
- CC-BY-NC-SA: you must provide credit, you can’t make money with it, and you must use the same license on your own work.
- CC-BY-ND: you must provide credit and you can't change the original work at all.
- CC-BY-NC-ND: you must provide credit, you can’t make money with it, and you can’t change the original work at all.