Creative Commons provides free, standardized copyright licenses that allow you to give permission for others to share & use your creative work, under the conditions that you choose. The benefit to creating a Creative Commons license for your work is that when others discover your work they know exactly how they can use, share, or modify it.
"Creative Commons licenses are not an alternative to copyright. They work alongside copyright and enable you to modify your copyright terms to best suit your needs." (Creative Commons, 2016). As the author, you still own the copyright.
Assigning a Creative Commons License to your work is easy. If you need help, contact your librarian, or link to in-depth information available on the CC website.
The links go directly to the full terms of each license.
Attribution: CC-BY: lets others distribute, remix, adapt your work, as long as they credit you
Attribution-ShareAlike: CC-BY-SA: lets others distribute, adapt, remix your work as long as they credit you, and they use the same license
Attribution-NonCommercial: CC-BY-NC: lets others remix and adapt your work, they must credit you, and they can’t use it commercially
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC-BY-NC-SA lets others remix and adapt your work, they must credit you, they can’t use commercially, and they must use the same license
Attribution-NoDerivs: CC-BY-ND: lets others reuse, but not change your work, and they must credit you
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs: CC-BY-NC-ND: lets others use your work, they must credit you, they can’t change it, and can’t use it commercially
For more information: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/
Explanatory images of Creative Commons Licenses are available at How To Attribute Creative Commons Photos by Foter (Wikimedia)
