What is Creative Commons?
According to the Creative Commons FAQ page, "Creative Commons is a global nonprofit organization that enables sharing and reuse of creativity and knowledge through the provision of free legal tools. Our legal tools help those who want to encourage reuse of their works by offering them for use under generous, standardized terms; those who want to make creative uses of works; and those who want to benefit from this symbiosis."
Creative Commons does not replace copyright, or seek to work against the legal notion of copyright. It works in conjunction with copyright to provide a method of standardized licensing for creators who see a benefit in making their work more freely available. Although Creative Commons has created a Public Domain mark, this is not automatically applied to most works in the public domain.
Creative Commons provides 6 different licenses, each more progressively restrictive in what it permits users to do. The links will take you to the Creative Commons definitions and examples.
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 license is the least restrictive.
This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit the original and license the new creations using the identical terms.
This license allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to the original.
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 don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.
CC By NC SA (Non-Commercial Share Alike)
This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit the original and license their new creations under the identical terms.
CC By NC ND (Non-Commercial No Derivatives)
This license is the most restrictive of the six main licenses, only allowing others to download the work and share them with others as long as they credit the original, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.
