What are creative commons licenses?

All Creative Commons licenses have many important features in common. Every license helps creators retain copyright while allowing others to copy, distribute, and make some uses of their work — at least non-commercially.

Every Creative Commons license also ensures licensors get the credit for their work they deserve. Every Creative Commons license works around the world and lasts as long as applicable copyright lasts (because they are built on copyright).

The Three layers of creative commons licenses

Secondly, the licenses are available in a format that normal people can read — the Commons Deed (also known as the “human readable” version of the license). The Commons Deed is a handy reference for licensors and licensees, summarizing and expressing some of the most important terms and conditions.  To see an example of the common deed of the CC-BY attribution click here.

The final layer is the machine-readable code.  In order to make it easy for the Web to know when a work is available under a Creative Commons license,  a “machine-readable” version of the license is provided — a summary of the key freedoms and obligations written into a format that software systems, search engines, and other kinds of technology can understand.

Below is an infographic sharing the six types of creative commons licenses.  Feel free to share under the CC-BY license.  It also should be noted that this blog post is edited, remixed, and built upon from Creative Commons own site under the CC-BY license.

To see the original post click here.

 

This work, “Creative Commons Licenses”, is a derivative of “About the Licenses” by Creative Commons, used under CC BY. “Creative Commons Licenses” is licensed under CC BY by Chad Flinn.