The Creative Commons Copyright licenses allow creators to communicate which rights they reserve, and which rights they waive for the benefit of recipients or other creators. Creative Commons licenses are based on but do not replace copyrights. Under an "all rights reserved" copyright, the licensor (the copyright owner) and the licensee negotiate for individual specific rights. Under a "some rights reserved" copyright, standardized licenses can be reused when no commercial compensation is sought by the copyright owner. The Creative Commons copyright licenses and tools thus forge a balance inside the traditional "all rights reserved" setting that copyright law creates. These tools give a simple, standardized way to grant copyright permissions to the creative work of individuals, companies, and institutions. The use of Creative Commons licenses has created a "digital commons:" a pool of content that can be copied, distributed, edited, remixed, and built upon, all within the boundaries of copyright law.
Users can use a Creative Commons search to yield results that fall under certain Creative Commons license. Creative Commons images can also be searched for in this manner.
There are various Creative Commons licenses that must be understood in order to legally distribute, copy, and share material:
- CC-BY (Attribution): 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 most accommodating of licenses offered. Recommended for maximum dissemination and use of licensed materials .
- CC-BY-SA (Attribution-ShareAlike): 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 license is used by Wikipedia, and is recommended for materials that would benefit from incorporating content from Wikipedia and similarly licensed projects .
- CC-BY-NC (Attribution-NonCommercial): 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 .