Creative Commons

The following describes each of the six main licenses offered when you choose to publish your work with a Creative Commons license. We have listed them starting with the most restrictive license type you can choose and ending with the most accommodating license type you can choose. It’s also helpful to know there are a set of baseline rights all six licenses offer to others and we’ve prepared a list of things to think about before choosing a license.

Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives (by-nc-nd)

Choose by-nc-nd licenseThis license is the most restrictive of our six main licenses, allowing redistribution. This license is often called the “free advertising” license because it allows others to download your works and share them with others as long as they mention you and link back to you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.
Read the Commons Deed | View Legal Code

Attribution Non-commercial Share Alike (by-nc-sa)

Choose by-nc-sa licenseThis license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. Others can download and redistribute your work just like the by-nc-nd license, but they can also translate, make remixes, and produce new stories based on your work. All new work based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also be non-commercial in nature.
Read the Commons Deed | View Legal Code

Attribution Non-commercial (by-nc)

Choose by-nc licenseThis license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.
Read the Commons Deed | View Legal Code

Attribution No Derivatives (by-nd)

Choose by-nd licenseThis license allows for
redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed
along unchanged and in whole, with credit to you.
Read the Commons Deed | View Legal Code

Attribution Share Alike (by-sa)

Choose by-sa license This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial reasons, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. This license is often compared to open source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use.

Read the Commons Deed | View Legal Code

Attribution (by)

Choose by licenseThis license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered, in terms of what others can do with your works licensed under Attribution.

Read the Commons Deed | View Legal Code

Other licenses

Our Public Domain Dedication lets you free works from copyright completely. For those licensing software, we offer human- and machine-readable wrappers for the GNU GPL and GNU LGPL licenses.