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Can you explain the different types of Creative Commons licenses?

There are six different Creative Commons Licenses, which allow differing levels of openness. Works licensed under Creative Commons are still under copyright, but most allow for other users to modify the original content. The Creative Commons License website has a License Chooser tool that can help you create a license for your work.

  • CC BY 4.0 This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered. Recommended for maximum dissemination and Use of licensed material.

  • CC BY 4.0  This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. This license is often compared to “copyleft” free and open source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use. This is the license used by Wikipedia, and is recommended for materials that would benefit from incorporating content from Wikipedia and similarly licensed projects.
  • CC BY-ND 4.0  This license allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to you. This license is not an OER.
  • CC BY-NC 4.0  This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they can also choose to add on layers of restriction (SA or ND).
  • CC BY-NC-SA 4.0  This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.
  • CC BY-NC-ND 4.0  This license is the most restrictive of our six main licenses, only allowing others to download your works and share them with others as long as they credit you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially. This license is not an OER.

CC License

These questions and answers were written by Andi Adkins Pogue and are licensed under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license.