You will generally want to combine a cc license with an open source license, as the os license will define how your code should be distributed while the cc license will protect your artistic rights. This guide serves to explain all the steps necessary and options available for integrating creative commons into your software. Lets others copy, distribute, display and perform the work for noncommercial purposes only. The figure below shows a good overview of what each license permits you to do. The creative commons wordpress plugin gives authors the ability to license content with a creative commons license choose a license. Both licenses are similar and allow you to do the following. We work on products that, among other things, make applying cc licenses to content easier, help users find cc licensed content easily, promote and educate users about cc licenses and, and connect the global cc community.
Frequently asked questions creative commons nederland. Learn about other free and open source software licenses at these sites. This license is often compared to copyleft free and open source software licenses. To use the free software foundations gnu general public. Creative commons recommends and uses free and open source software licenses for software. The most important reason people chose mit license is. This article describes best practices for marking works licensed with a creative commons license or dedicated to the public domain with both human readable and machine readable notices, on the web and otherwise. Learn about the creative commons licence and why its advisable not to use it on opensource software. The gnu general public license gnu gpl or simply gpl is a widely used free software license, origin. We hope to build upon and complement the work of others who have created public licenses for a. The gnu general public license gnu gpl or simply gpl is. Oct 28, 2019 you will generally want to combine a cc license with an open source license, as the os license will define how your code should be distributed while the cc license will protect your artistic rights. Searching for open content is an important function enabled by our approach. Plaintext versions of creative commons licensesthe creative commons licenses are now available in plaintext form.
If the screenshot contains images or icons with free licenses with requirements, you have to honor them, such as by listing them and their authors and licenses, which may be other than creative commons attributionsharealike. For creative works such as writing and multimedia, owners can apply one of the creative commons licenses. According to the fine print on the creative commons website, creative commons licenses cannot be revoked once theyve been applied to a work. Creative commons licenses should not be used for software. Free software foundation licenses list open source initiative approved licenses read more software.
But we also want our licenses to be useful for materials distributed in file formats around the net. Understanding free cultural works creative commons. Educate people in the importance of open sourcecreative commons. Mit license is ranked 1st while creative commons is ranked 7th. Kan ik een creative commonslicentie voor software gebruiken. Creative commons licenses are attached to web pages. At the homepage, this shows you top categories along with top picks of the day. If your software does not transparently support embedding cc license metadata you should. Nc noncommercial use and nd no derivative works are conditions that make the cc licenses more restrictive and thus less open. Any type of creative work can be made available in the public domain. Nonetheless, the creative commons licenses provide a good foundation for the attempt. Creative commons is a nonprofit organization that offers licenses for digital work. Educate people in the importance of open source creative commons. This creative commons license is very similar to the regular attribution license, but.
List of major creative commons licensed works wikipedia. Open source software licenses can be also used for non software works and are often the best choice, especially when the works in question can be edited and versioned as source e. Various licenses and comments about them gnu project. Creative commons licenses can be multilayered, allowing more or less freedom.
In open access publishing and in open educational resources cc licenses are commonly used. Whenever a work is copied or redistributed under a creative commons licence, the original creator and any other nominated parties must be credited and the source linked to. Look no further than this guide to what the creative commons licenses mean for you as the user and as the creator. An open license or free license licence in commonwealth english is the legal statement that allows free content and free software to be free. Why are creative commons licenses not acceptable for software. Creative commons attributionsharealike licenses are informed and inspired by the principles and lessons of the free software movement. Open source software licenses can be also used for nonsoftware works and are often the best choice, especially when the works in question can be edited and versioned as source e. A new creative commons search tool for creators seeking to discover and reuse free resources with greater ease. Open game art, media repository for software game projects, cc by, ccbysa, cc0, others. Creative commons empowers creators to give implicit permission to everyone to use, share, and remix their work without needing to ask in each instance. Can i apply a creative commons license to software. For software, programmers can apply an open source license. In 2003, the international university glocom hold a meeting for the cc japan preparation. The web services are designed to be a more flexible replacement for the htmlonly partner interface.
Creative commons corporation creative commons is not a law firm and does not provide legal services or legal advice. Although certain creative commons licenses allow granting of relatively narrow freedoms, in this document we use free and libre in the sense used by the free software movement. The cc0 license was released by the nonprofit organization creative commons. Fortunately, the vast majority of owners of now use a small set of popular and well understood licenses. Broadcast a large variety of creative commons music. Creative commons provides a set of web services which allow application developers to integrate license selection with their own software. See the freedom defined wiki for more information the exact meaning may vary, but a common idea of an open license is one that requires attribution but otherwise lets. The creative commons licenses are also not compatible with the gnu gpl, an heavily used free software license, while the mit expat license is compatible with all gpl versions. Suppose someone claiming a license by creative commons complies with some, but not all of the conditions. Why shouldnt creative commons licenses be used for software.
A creative commons cc license is one of several public licenses that enable the. All structured data from the file and property namespaces is available under the creative commons cc0 license. We recommend against using creative commons licenses for software. Applications with creative commons licensing builtin. Creative commons and open source ap csp article khan. License your blog single wordpress install display license for the site, posts and pages. Distribution of creative commons public licenses does not create a lawyerclient or other relationship. In order to make it easy for the web to know when a work is available under a creative commons license, we provide a machine readable version of the license a summary of the key freedoms and obligations written into a format that software system, search engines, and. Please consult your own legal advisor if you have any questions or concerns about the information provided below, about cc0 or about creative commons licenses and tools generally. When you use open source software with a copyleft license, your derivative software typically must be distributed with a copyleft license as well. Broadcast a large variety of creative commons music 247. One important reason why creative commons licenses.
Creative commons licenses creative commons research. Download creative commons addin for microsoft office from. Licensees must credit the licensor, keep notices intact on all copies of the work, and link to the license from copies of the work. This is a list of notable works available under a creative commons license. While the most photos are released under the pexels license, some photos are covered by the creative commons zero cc0 license.
Selecting a language below will dynamically change the complete page content to that language. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so. The following list of software packages and web applications incorporated creative commons licensing, so you wont have to copypaste html from licenses or add buttons to your pages. Existing software licenses were designed specifically for use with software and offer a similar set of rights to the creative commons licenses. Creative commons has been building free software for over a decade to support our mission of maximizing digital creativity, sharing, and innovation. This means free as in freedom of speech or free to use it how you want. Rating is available when the video has been rented. For software, creative commons includes three free licenses created by other institutions. Instead, we strongly encourage you to use one of the very good software licenses which. Therefore, to say that a work uses a creative commons license is to leave the principal questions about the works licensing unanswered. If you use a creative commons license, make sure youre not going to change your mind in the future about giving everyone open access to your work. To learn more about license designs, rationale, and structure of creative commons licenses, please read about the licenses by creative commons.
Unlike the gnu gpl, creative commons licenses are not designed for software, but rather for other kinds of creative works. This addin enables you to embed creative commons licenses directly into word, powerpoint, and excel documents. It remains an open question whether the ideas behind the open source and free software licensing movement will have the same impact on aesthetic works that they had on software. Various licenses and comments about them gnu project free. Creative commons licenses are several licenses released on december 16, 2002 by creative commons, a u. Creative commons publishes many licenses which are very different. This addin enables you to embed a creative commons license into a document that you create using microsoft office word, microsoft office. However, cc licenses are not intended to be used to release software, as our faq has always said. Suppose the person claiming a creative commons license complies with the terms, but then stops doing so. Encourage upandcoming bands to go creative commons. Creative commons licenses explained in plain english sara f.
Some open source licenses are copyleft, a similar restriction as the share alike condition for creative commons licenses. The creative commons licenses themselves illustrate this point as they were created at a time when there were already a variety of freeopensource software licences available that could, in theory, have been applied to content e. The wikimedia commons, the multimedia repository of wikipedia, is a core user of our licenses as well. The content on this website, of which is the author, is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4. Creative commons japan cc japanccjp is the affiliated network of creative commons in japan. However, where open source licenses were ideal for software applications, creative commons was intended to work for other types of creative works, including text, images, audio and video. Creative commons cc is an american nonprofit organization devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share.
How do i add the creative commons license to software code. Creative commons license vs gpl difference and comparison. Adobe creative cloud gives you the worlds best creative apps and services so you can make anything you can imagine, wherever youre inspired. This is why people sometimes prefer noncopyleft license, depending on the work and the kind of practices they want to encourage. Creative commons plaintext licenses and using cc0 for. Mixing and matching these conditions produces sixteen possible combinations, of which eleven are valid creative commons licenses and five are not. The above text from about the licenses by creative commons is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4. Attribution cc by attribution sharealike cc bysa attributionnoderivs cc bynd attributionnoncommercial cc bync attributionnoncommercialsharealike cc byncsa attributionnoncommercialnoderivs cc byncnd. The creative commons project is just getting started.
From the creative commons faq can i apply a creative commons license to software. Questions about the in a license should be directed to the license steward. Cc search is a free aggregation tool that helps you find images from publicly available repositories of open content. Use all photos for free for commercial and noncommercial purposes. We strongly encourage you to use one of the very good software licenses which are already available. Creative commons is aware of the problems with nc licenses. Prevent license changes per site all pages on a site must use the same license. Creative commons licenses and the noncommercial condition. Does the noncommercial creative commons license make sense.
The protocol described here works for many filetypes. This is answered by creative commons themselves in their faq unlike softwarespecific licenses, cc licenses do not contain specific terms about the distribution of source code, which is often important to ensuring the free reuse and modifiability of software. Copyleft licenses are sometimes even considered to be nonfree because of the restrictions for redistribution of the works. We hope to build upon and complement the work of others who have created public licenses for a variety of creative works. Creative commons license spectrum by shaddim cc by creative commons provides a range of licenses, each of which grants different rights to use the materials licensed under them. Creative commons licenses software free download creative. All photos that are covered by the creative commons zero license are marked with cc0 on the photo page. In the questionwhat are the best opensource licenses. When comparing mit license vs creative commons, the slant community recommends mit license for most people. You can get more information about creative commons and their license on the official license page. Sep 04, 2014 however, where open source licenses were ideal for software applications, creative commons was intended to work for other types of creative works, including text, images, audio and video.
To use the free software foundations gnu general public license, see how to use gnu licenses for your own software. Nov 07, 2017 searching for open content is an important function enabled by our approach. Creative commons licenses require licensees to get permission to do any of the things with a work that the law reserves exclusively to a licensor and that the license does not expressly allow. In march 2004, cc japan was initiated by that university, that which is the second cc created among the world. Creative commons aimed to achieve this through a series of licenses from which a creator could choose. If you are integrating creative commons licenses with a nonweb application, or would like more control over the user interface, the creative commons web services may be more appropriate.
We delete comments that violate our policy, which we. Mit license vs creative commons detailed comparison as of. You may copy, distribute and modify the software as long as you track. Therefore, to say that a work uses a creative commons license is to leave the. The information provided below is not a substitute for legal advice and is not complete. Jan 31, 20 selecting a language below will dynamically change the complete page content to that language. The organization has released several licenses, known as creative commons licenses, free of charge to the public. This is answered by creative commons themselves in their faq unlike software specific licenses, cc licenses do not contain specific terms about the distribution of source code, which is often important to ensuring the free reuse and modifiability of software. Sharealike is a synonym of copyleft in the creative commons vocabulary.
223 177 504 310 1250 1037 219 1267 1498 98 1495 1075 605 844 350 524 989 1166 719 501 1075 735 660 621 644 1608 1129 841 1396 500 656 552 804 1359 912 579 1420 280 90 581 454 1273 1268 162 1418 878 1320