The six Creative Commons licenses allow differing levels of openness. They are organized below from the most amount of freedom to the least amount of freedom. The last two that contain ND (no derivative) are not considered open educational resources. 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-SA 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-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-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-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.

More about Creative Commons Licenses

You can learn much more about CC licenses on the Creative Commons website, including the Creative Commons FAQ page which is particularly helpful for detailed information about using the licenses. 

Sarah Davis is sharing some assignments completed for the Creative Commons certificate course. Viewing alternative: Accessible text equivalent of Infographic: A Little Introduction to Creative Commons Licenses.

A Little Introduction to Creative Commons Licenses by Sarah Davis

Creative Commons Resources

Creative Commons licensing can be confusing. Luckily there are some great resources available to help you wrap your head around these ideas.

• CC Legal Team Monthly Office Hours: These are held on the third Friday of the month to answer your questions related to openly licensed material. You must register for these events. Though lawyers can give you guidance, the information should not be considered legal advice in an official capacity. 
• CC Answer bot: The CreativeCommonsBot will try to answer questions about Creative Commons licensing. This tool was created by Benny Ng (chemistry faculty at Pierce College) and is licensed under CC-BY-NC 4.0 unless otherwise noted.  
• CC Test your knowledge: The CCQuizBot will ask 5 multiple-choice questions about Creative Commons licensing. This tool was created by Benny Ng (chemistry faculty at Pierce College) and is licensed under CC-BY-NC 4.0 unless otherwise noted.  

Answer Inspiration & Attribution

 About CC Licenses by Creative Commons is licensed CC BY 4.0