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ANATOMY OF A
CREATIVE COMMONS
(CC) LICENSE
THREE LAYERS
Machine Readable Layer - a summary of the key freedoms granted and
obligations imposed written into a format that applications, search engines,
and other kinds of technology can understand.
Human Readable (common deeds) Layer - lays out the key license terms.
The deeds are not legally enforceable but instead summarize the legal code.
Legal Code Layer - “lawyer-readable” terms and conditions that are legally
enforceable in court.
FOUR ELEMENTS
Attribution or “BY”: You must give the author or licensor the credits (attribution) in the manner
specified by them.
NonCommercial or “NC”: The work is only available to be used for noncommercial purposes.
ShareAlike or “SA”: Adaptations based on this work must be licensed under the same license.
NoDerivatives or “ND”: Reusers cannot share adaptations of the work.
SIX LICENSES
The Attribution license or “CC BY” allows people to use the work for any purpose (even
commercially and even in modified form) as long as they give attribution to the creator.
The Attribution-ShareAlike license or “BY-SA” allows people to use the work for any
purpose, as long as they give attribution to the creator and make any adaptations they share
with others available under the same or a compatible license.
The Attribution-NonCommercial license or “BY-NC” allows people to use the work for
noncommercial purposes only, and only as long as they give attribution to the creator.
The Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license or “BY-NC-SA” allows people to use
the work for noncommercial purposes only, and only as long as they give attribution 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, as long as they give attribution to the creator.
The Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license or “BY-NC-ND” allows people to
use the unadapted work for noncommercial purposes only, and only as long as they give
attribution to the licensor.
EXCEPTIONS AND LIMITATIONS
CC licenses do not reduce, limit, or restrict any rights under exceptions and limitations
to copyright, such as fair use or fair dealing.
PUBLIC DOMAIN TOOLS
Marking works with CC0 gives creators who want to give up their copyrights a way to do so, to the
fullest extent allowed by law.
Public Domain Mark enables works that are no longer restricted by copyright to be marked as
such in a standard and simple way, making them easily discoverable and available to others. Public
Domain Mark is recommended for works that are free of known copyright around the world.
ARE YOU READY TO SHARE YOUR WORK?
Use this tool to choose a CC license: https://creativecommons.org/choose/
CREATED BY: JANICE FLORENT
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Source and Image Credits: https://bit.ly/2p8uWoe