What is a Creative Commons licence?

A Creative Commons licence is a public copyright licence that enables free distribution of a copyrighted work. It is usually used by an author to give others the right to use, share and build upon a work created by the author.

A Creative Commons licence can provide flexibility to an author (e.g. choosing to only allow non-commercial uses of their work) and protect those who use or redistribute the author’s work from copyright infringement concerns as long as they follow the conditions specified by the licence. Each Creative Commons licence works globally and lasts for as long as the duration of the work’s copyright period.

Types of Creative Commons licences

There are seven types of Creative Commons licences, which have different degrees of permission on how the re-users use, share and/or build upon a copyrighted work. They are listed out below from the most to the least permissive:

Essentially, the short forms attached after “CC” entail the following rights:

Short-form	Rights	Meaning
BY	Right of attribution	Re-users can copy, display, distribute and perform the work as well as make remixes and derivative works as long as they give the author credit.
SA	Right of share-alike	Re-users can distribute derivative works under a licence that is identical to the licence governing the original work only.
NC	Right to allow only non-commercial use	Re-users can distribute, perform, copy and display the work as well as make remixes and derivative works solely for non-commercial purposes.
ND	Right to not allow derivative works and remixes of the original work	Re-users can only display, copy, distribute and perform verbatim copies of the work.

Key takeaways

A Creative Commons licence is a public copyright licence that enables the author of a copyrighted work to freely distribute their work.
There are seven types of Creative Commons licences, which have different degrees of permission on how the re-users use, share and/or build upon a copyrighted work:

CC0;
CC BY;
CC BY-SA;
CC BY-NC;
CC BY-NC-SA;
CC BY-ND; and
CC BY-NC-ND.

The short forms after “CC” entail different rights owned by the author of the original work.

Bibliography:

Creative Commons Hong Kong, ‘CC Licenses’: https://hk.creativecommons.org/cc-licenses

Type	Symbol	Degree of permission	Elements
CC0		CCO is not a license. It is a public dedication tool that enables creators to give up the copyright of their work and put the work into the worldwide public domain. It allows re-users to distribute, adapt, remix and build upon the material via any format or medium with no imposition of any conditions.	None
CC BY		It allows re-users of the work to distribute, adapt, remix and build upon the material in any format or medium as long as the creator is given attribution. It also allows for commercial use.	BY: The creator must be given attribution or credit.
CC BY-SA		Same as above. However, if you adapt, remix or build upon the material, the modified material must be licenced under identical terms.	BY: The creator must be given attribution or credit.SA: Any adaptation must be shared under identical terms.
CC BY-NC		Although it also allows re-users to remix, distribute, adapt and build upon the material in any format or medium, it can only be for non-commercial purposes and attribution must be given to the creator.	BY: The creator must be given attribution or credit.NC: Only for non-commercial purposes.
CC BY-NC-SA		Same as above. However, if you adapt, remix or build upon the material, the modified material must be licenced under identical terms.	BY: The creator must be given attribution or credit.NC: Only for non-commercial purposes.SA: Any adaptation must be shared under identical terms.
CC BY-ND		It allows re-users to copy and distribute the material via any format or medium but only in a non-adapted form and attribution must be given to the creator. It also allows for commercial use.	BY: The creator must be given attribution or credit.ND: No adaptation or derivative of the work is permitted.
CC BY-NC-ND		Same as above. However, it can only be for non-commercial purposes.	BY: The creator must be given attribution or credit.NC: Only for non-commercial purposes.ND: No adaptation or derivative of the work is permitted.