Copyright-Friendly Sources

Creative Commons licenses give creators flexibility to share their copyrighted works online for others to use for a variety of purposes without needing to seek permission to do so. 

About the Licenses

Licenses can be customized to varying levels of openness. 

The following licenses are most commonly applied to works by creators as well as by publishers of content that is freely available online: 

	Attribution (CC BY) – Others can distribute, and build upon this work, even commercially, as long as credit is given to the original author or creator.
	Attribution Non-Commercial (CC BY-NC) – Others can build upon this work non-commercially. Derivative works must acknowledge the author or creator, but do not need to be licensed under the same terms.
	Attribution Share Alike (CC BY-SA) – Others can distribute, and build upon this work, even commercially, as long as they credit the original author or creator and license their new creations under the identical terms.
	Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike (CC BY-NC-SA) – Others can distribute, and build upon this work non-commercially, as long as they credit the original author or creator and license their new creations under identical terms.
	Attribution No Derivatives (CC BY-ND) – This work can be redistributed, commercially and non-commercially, as long as it is passed along unchanged, with credit to the author or creator.
	Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) – Others can download and share this work as long as credit is given to the author or creator, and the work is left unchanged and used non-commercially.

Assign a License

Visit the Creative Commons License Chooser for help assigning a license to your own work.

Content adapted from About the Licenses by Creative Commons under CC BY.  Icons by The Noun Project.