Copyright for Faculty

Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization providing free, easy-to-use copyright licenses to create a standardized way to offer the public permission to share and use your creative work under specific conditions.

Full copyright in a work exists from the moment you hit save, put pen to paper, or paintbrush to canvas. That copyright exists for your lifetime plus 70 years. That's a really long time for work to be locked up. Some creators may want total control over their creative works, but others may be interested in having their work built upon by others. Creative Commons (CC) licenses exist to facilitate that reuse.

Copyright is all rights reserved. Creative Commons is some rights reserved.

CC licenses work with traditional copyright to enable easier use of things you create, and allow you to reuse work from others. They do this by communicating in a standardized way the rights you want to share with others. Creative Commons licenses replace the individual negotiations for usage rights that traditional all rights reserved copyright requires. If you want to allow others to copy, remix, and share your work, there's a license for that. If you want others to do all of that, but not for commercial purposes, there's a different license for that. See Types of Licenses to learn more.

To determine if Creative Commons licensing is right for you as a creator, or to understand how to interpret a Creative Commons deed for reusing works created by others, consult the following resources:

• About the Licenses

  Explains how the licenses were designed, what the licenses do, the three "layers" of the license, and the breakdown of license options.

• Tool for Choosing a License

  Step by step tool for choosing a license.

• Best Practices for Attribution

  CC-licensed materials can be used as long as the conditions named in the license deed are met along with attribution and linking back to the license deed. This link provides a range of examples modeling proper attribution practices.

License Conditions

There are four main conditions you can apply to a CC license.

  Attribution - all CC licenses require this condition. Users must attribute their source, explain changes they've made, and link to the original work. Their attribution should not give the impression that the original creator(s) endorses their work.

  Non-Commercial - this condition means that users are free to use and adapt your work, but they cannot do so for commercial purposes. 

  Share Alike - this condition means that users need to distribute any modified works with the same license. It's intended to keep CC licensed works as part of the commons rather than locked up with all rights reserved.

  No Derivatives - users can copy, distribute, perform and display the work, but they need permission from the creator(s) to make any changes.

License Types

The four different license conditions can be mixed and matched to create licenses for different situations. There are six main license types you can use to specify what people are allowed to do with your work.

	Users are free to copy, adapt, remix, and redistribute the content - even commercially. User must give appropriate credit to the creator(s). Link to CC-BY license.
	Users are free to copy, adapt, remix, and redistribute the content. User must give appropriate credit to the creator(s). User may not use the content for commercial purposes. Link to CC-BY-NC license.
	Users are free to copy, adapt, remix, and redistribute the content - even commercially. User must give appropriate credit to the creator(s), and if they choose to remix/build upon the work, it must be distributed with the same license. Link to CC-BY-SA license.
	Users are free to copy and redistribute the content - even commercially. User must give appropriate credit to the creator(s). The work may not be redistributed with changes. Link to CC-BY-ND license.
	Users are free to copy, adapt, remix, and redistribute the content. User must give appropriate credit to the creator(s). User may not use the content for commercial purposes. If the user chooses to remix/build upon the work, it must be distributed with the same license. Link to CC-BY-NC-SA license.
	Users are free to copy and redistribute the content. User must give appropriate credit to the creator(s). User may not use the content for commercial purposes. The work may not be redistributed with changes. Link to CC-BY-NC-ND license.

Public Domain Licenses

Creative Commons also provides licenses for those who want to dedicate their work to the Public Domain or for those who want to mark existing Public Domain documents as such.

	Use the CC-0 license if you want to waive all your copyrights to that work. This essentially dedicates your work to the public domain and means other people will be able to use it however they like.
	Use the Public Domain Mark if you have a work that is already a part of the public domain and you want to make that clear to users. Do not use this designation if you aren't totally sure of the copyright status of the item.

A good rule of thumb is to use the acronym TASL, which stands for Title, Author, Source, License.

Title - What is the name of the material?

If a title was provided for the material, include it. Sometimes a title is not provided; in that case, don't worry about it.

Author - Who owns the material?

Name the author or authors of the material in question. Sometimes, the licensor may want you to give credit to some other entity, like a company or pseudonym. In rare cases, the licensor may not want to be attributed at all. In all of these cases, just do what they request.

Source - Where can I find it?

Since you somehow accessed the material, you know where to find it. Provide the source of the material so others can, too. Since we live in the age of the Internet, this is usually a URL or hyperlink where the material resides.

License - How can I use it?

You are obviously using the material for free thanks to the CC license, so make note of it. Don't just say the material is Creative Commons, because that says nothing about how the material can actually be used. Remember that there are six different CC licenses; which one is the material under? Name and provide a link to it, eg. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ for CC BY.

→ If the licensor included a license notice with more information, include that as well.

Lastly, is there anything else I should know before I use it?

When you accessed the material originally did it come with any copyright notices; a notice that refers to the disclaimer of warranties; or a notice of previous modifications? 

→ Regarding modifications: Don't forget to note if you modified the work yourself (example). If you are at the point where you are creating and licensing derivative works (example), see Marking your work with a CC license.

These best practices are based on actual CC license requirements. Noting the title is a requirement of all CC licenses version 3.0 or earlier, optional for 4.0. Noting the author, source, license, and retaining any extra notices is a requirement of all CC licenses. See Devil in the details.

Open Attribution Builder

​​​​​​​Tool from Open Washington that semi-automates the process of creating an attribution.