Creative Commons Licences
[July 2006] Share your work, but still get credit. When businesses create publications and other works they usually copyright it all and charge lots of money to those who wish to use it. On the other hand, many community groups and individuals are motivated more by the desire to share information and resources, but would still like their expenditure of time and energy to be recognised. Such people can use a Creative Commons licence.
Creative Commons licences allow you to attach conditions to work you produce — for example, you may specify that others can build on your work, but they must acknowledge you as the original author, and may not charge for the new publication. Creative Commons licences are free, easy to obtain, and increasingly popular.
Four key principles.
There are four key principles, summarised here:
- Attribution: others must give you credit in the way you request.
- Noncommercial: others may or may not profit from your work.
- Derivative works: others may or may not build upon your original work.
- Share alike: if others build on your work you may require them to share it rather than selling it.
Learn more.
Two excellent, clear and straightforward online comics explain the principles and how to choose the licence that works for you:
- creativecommons.org/about/licenses/comics1
- creativecommons.org/about/licenses/how1
Exhibit the licence.
To obtain a Creative Commons licence you answer three or four easy questions in an online form. After clicking the Select a Licence button you will see a new web page giving you text and HTML code you can add to your work, for example:
This work is licenced under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 license. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, California 94305, USA.
Something to think about.
If you own the rights to work you have created, then a Creative Commons licence may be appropriate for it. There are some useful guidelines and thinking points at the Creative Commons website. It's worth having a look, and thinking about how to release the resources you've created. And it's not just for print or websites; there are licences for music, video and photos too.