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Copyright Basics

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Creative Commons

Creative Commons is a non-profit that offers an alternative to full copyright.  creativecommons.org

Briefly...

Attribution icon Attribution means:
You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your copyrighted work - and derivative works based upon it - but only if they give you credit.

Noncommercial icon Noncommercial means:
You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your work - and derivative works based upon it - but for noncommercial purposes only.

No Derivative Works icon No Derivative Works means:
You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform only verbatim copies of your work, not derivative works based upon it.

Share Alike iconShare Alike means:
You allow others to distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs your work.

When We Share Everyone Wins

How can I license my work?

There is no registration to use the Creative Commons licenses.

Licensing a work is as simple as selecting which of the six licenses best meets your goals, and then marking your work in some way so that others know that you have chosen to release the work under the terms of that license.

Our license-choosing tool can help you select the right license.

Choose a License

Using a Creative Commons will make it clear to users who owns the copyright and how they may use your material.  Since you hold the copyright to all the materials you create, reuse and acknowledgement are much easier if you identify yourself. You can be as restrictive or open as you choose.

YouTube Video on How to Create Learning Materials with Different Licenses

Found on the Orange Grove Repository's YouTube channel. The Orange Grove repository is Florida's digital repository for instructional resources.

This video is intended to help you choose compatible resources and choose a valid license for your work. Suppose you are developing an open educational resource (OER), and you want to use some other OER within yours. If you create a derivative work by adapting or combining works offered under Creative Common licenses, you must not only follow the terms of each of the licenses involved, but also choose a license for your work that is compatible with the other licenses.

Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/b... ), Copyright Florida Virtual Campus

Image, Video, and Audio Sites

Guide to Creative Commons for Humanities and Social Science Monograph Authors

This guide explores concerns expressed in public evidence given by researchers, learned societies and publishers to inquiries in the House of Commons and the House of Lords, and also concerns expressed by researchers working with the OAPEN-UK project. We have also identified a number of common questions and have drafted answers, which have been checked by experts including Creative Commons. The guide has been edited by active researchers, to make sure that it is relevant and useful to academics faced with making decisions about publishing. It is available under a CC BY license.  Citation: Ellen Collins, Caren Milloy, and Graham Stone. “Guide to Creative Commons for Humanities and Social Science Monograph Authors." JISC Collections.