Copyright Toolkit

Creative Commons licenses are constructed through the combination of four license elements. Each these elements has their own icon to indicate permissions.

This symbol means Attribution or “BY.” All of the licenses include this condition

NonCommercial or “NC”, this element prohibits the use of content for commercial purposes.

ShareAlike or "SA", adaptations must be licensed under the same license

NoDerivatives or "ND", this means reusers cannot share adaptations of the work.

The 4 license elements combine to make up 6 different license options. All licenses include the BY condition, this means all licenses require the creator be attributed with their work. Otherwise licenses vary on whether commercial use is permited and if the work can be adapted, and the terms in can be adapted.

Creative Commons lists the licenses from most restrictive to least, so I see no need to change that here.

	The Attribution license or “CC BY” allows people to use and adapt the work for any purpose (even commercially) as long as they give credit to the creator.
	The Attribution-ShareAlike license or “BY-SA” allows people to use and adapt the work for any purpose (even commercially), as long as they give credit to the creator and make any adaptations they share with others available under the same or a compatible license. This is CC’s version of a copyleft license
	The Attribution-NonCommercial license or “BY-NC”allows people to use the work, or adaptations of the work, for noncommercial purposes only, and only as long as they give credit to the creator.
	The Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license or “BY-NC-SA” allows people to use and adapt the work for noncommercial purposes only, and only as long as they give credit to the creator and make any adaptations they share with others available under the same or a compatible license
	The Attribution-NoDerivatives license or “BY-ND” allows people to use the unadapted work for any purpose (even commercially), as long as they give credit to the creator. They may also adapt the work for their own personal use but may not share any adaptations publicly.
	The Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license or “BY-NC-ND” is the most restrictive license offered by CC. It allows people to use the unadapted work for noncommercial purposes only, and only as long as they give credit to the creator. They may also adapt the work for their own personal use but may not share any adaptations publicly.

As defined by Wikipedia:

"Copyleft is the legal technique of granting certain freedoms over copies of copyrighted works with the requirement that the same rights be preserved in derivative works. In this sense, freedoms refers to the use of the work for any purpose, and the ability to modify, copy, share, and redistribute the work, with or without a fee. Licenses which implement copyleft can be used to maintain copyright conditions for works ranging from computer software, to documents, art, scientific discoveries and even certain patents."

There are two public domain tools available in the Creative Commons.

	The first is CC0 (CC Zero). This tool enables creators to dedicate their works to the worldwide public domain to the greatest extent possible.
	The Public Domain Mark is used to mark works that are known to be free of all copyright restrictions. Is often used by museums, libraries and archives to indicate public domain status of works.

More detailed information can be found at the Creative Commons Wiki and at CreativeCommons.org.

Fair use is a leading example for showing exceptions and limitation when dealing with Creative Commons as it is with Copyright. If the use of material is deemed to be for fair use a CC license cannot prevent this useage any more that Copyright could. In other words if it is permitted by copyright, it is then permitted with CC licensed materials. In dealing with CC licenses one should know that certain other rights, such as patents, trademarks, privacy and publicity rights, are not covered by the CC licenses. Software is another area where CC doesn't apply, CreativeCommons.org recommends visiting the Free Software Foundation and Open Source Initiative for information on this topic.

Information is also provided in the Fair Use section of the guide.

3 Layers of the CC Licenses
Commons, C. (n.d.). 3.1 license design and Terminology. 3.1 License Design and Terminology | Creative Commons Certificate for Educators, Academic Librarians and GLAM. Retrieved October 13, 2022, from https://certificates.creativecommons.org/cccertedu/chapter/3-1-license-design-and-terminology/

CC REL. CC REL - Creative Commons. (n.d.). Retrieved October 13, 2022, from https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/CC_REL

The 4 License Elements
Commons, C. (n.d.). 3.1 license design and Terminology. 3.1 License Design and Terminology | Creative Commons Certificate for Educators, Academic Librarians and GLAM. Retrieved October 13, 2022, from https://certificates.creativecommons.org/cccertedu/chapter/3-1-license-design-and-terminology/

Creative commons: CC licenses. Research Guides. (n.d.). Retrieved October 13, 2022, from https://libguides.colorado.edu/c.php?g=887144&p=6424254

The 6 Creative Commons Licenses
Commons, C. (n.d.). 3.3 license types. 3.3 License Types | Creative Commons Certificate for Educators, Academic Librarians and GLAM. Retrieved October 13, 2022, from https://certificates.creativecommons.org/cccertedu/chapter/3-3-license-types/

Copyleft License
Wikimedia Foundation. (2022, September 23). Copyleft. Wikipedia. Retrieved October 13, 2022, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft Copyleft Image by By Zscout370, Sertion, e.a. - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=471020

Public Domain Tools
Commons, C. (n.d.). 3.1 license design and Terminology. 3.1 License Design and Terminology | Creative Commons Certificate for Educators, Academic Librarians and GLAM. Retrieved October 13, 2022, from https://certificates.creativecommons.org/cccertedu/chapter/3-1-license-design-and-terminology/
Public domain. Public domain - Creative Commons. (n.d.). Retrieved October 13, 2022, from https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/public_domain

Exceptions & Limitations
Creative commons: Exceptions. Research Guides. (n.d.). Retrieved October 13, 2022, from https://libguides.colorado.edu/cclicenses/exceptions
Commons, C. (n.d.). 3.2 license scope. 3.2 License Scope | Creative Commons Certificate for Educators, Academic Librarians and GLAM. Retrieved October 13, 2022, from https://certificates.creativecommons.org/cccertedu/chapter/3-2-license-scope/