Things to consider when applying a CC license to your original work

Before you decide that you want to apply a Creative Commons license or CC0 to your creative work, there are some important things to consider:

The licenses and CC0 are irrevocable.

Irrevocable means a legal agreement that cannot be canceled. That means once you apply a CC license to a work, the CC license applies to the work until the copyright on the work expires. This aspect of CC licensing is highly desirable from the perspective of reusers because they have confidence knowing the creator can’t arbitrarily pull back the rights granted them under the CC license.

Because the licenses are irrevocable, it is very important to carefully consider the options before deciding to use a CC license on a work.

You must own or control copyright in the work.

You should control copyright in the work to which you apply the license. For example, you don’t own or control any copyright in a work that is in the public domain, and you don’t own or control the copyright to an Enrique Iglesias song. Further, if you created the material in the scope of your employment, you may not be the holder of the rights and may need to get permission from your employer before applying a CC license. Before licensing, be mindful about whether you have copyright to the work to which you’re applying a CC license. 

Which Creative Commons license should I use?

The six Creative Commons licenses provide a range of options for creators who want to share their work with the public while still retaining copyright. Creators can determine if they want the public to adapt their works, and if so, on what terms. The best way to decide which license is appropriate for you is to think about why you want to share and how you hope others will use your work.

For example, here are a few questions to consider:

• Do you want to require others to use your work only in unadapted form, or should they be able to adapt and innovate upon your work, translating it in other languages, or customizing it to better meet their needs?
• Are all reuses of your work acceptable, or do you need to restrict reuse in certain ways? For example, perhaps you only want to allow noncommercial uses of your work, or you want to ensure that adaptations are also shared with the same permissions as the original.
• Do you want to give away all of your rights in your work so that it can be used by anyone in the world for any purpose? Then think about using the public domain dedication tool, CC0, instead of one of the six CC licenses.
• Additional questions you might consider relate to the platform for reuse.
  • Is it important to you that your images are able to be incorporated into Wikipedia? If so, then you should choose CC BY, BY-SA, or CC0, because Wikipedia does not allow images licensed under any of the NonCommercial or NoDerivatives licenses.

If you need some help deciding which license or tool might be best for you, CC offers the CC License Chooser. 

Creative Commons Certificate for Educators, Academic Librarians, and Open Culture by Creative Commons. License: CC BY: Attribution

The information on this site is not legal advice and is provided for informational purposes only. 

This work is licensed under CC BY 4.0