I bet you’ve also been at that point where you need different images to add verve to your writing and make your site look more attractive for a ‘wow’ user experience.
But then, you are not sure if the image that fits your webpage best is free from copyright issues if you would not be penalized for using someone else’s image.
This conundrum is one key headache that keeps many web content creators awake all night long.
You are not alone; we’ve all been there!
In this article, we will be educating ourselves on what Creative Commons entails, why the Creative Common License is important and the various types of Creative Commons Licenses that are out there.
Do I download; do I not?
When you have no choice but to go online to find and download, modify and use all sorts of images and you feel good about it because no one is watching, no one is there to challenge your downloading orgies.
Guess what, unless you pay attributes, there might be one form of illegality or the other trailing your acts.
This illegality may apply to videos, audios, books, plays, music, movies, photographs, vector images, articles, etc. So far it has been published by someone else before you, it downloading and using same may amount to copyright breaches.
Does it mean you cannot download any of the above for free?
Well, that is where Creative Commons comes into play.
What is Creative Commons?
Creative Commons can be described as a form of copyright licensing that has to do with creative works.
Under basic copyright laws, no one has the right to copy, distribute, use, remix or profit from your work without your express or implied permission.
Conversely, you too do not have the right to copy, distribute, use, remix or profit from other people’s work without their express or implied permission.
Such applicable copyright laws still govern works licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Some tweaks, though
Since the birth of the digital era, such copyright laws no longer have such force and, in some cases, no more applicable considering that a lot of exchange of information, remixing, redistribution and also marketing of digital products and services are ongoing around the world on a per-second basis.
The elimination of insignificance of distance and national jurisdictions and borders has given rise to nonstop information flow all year round where different countries and territories rely on their own localized laws guarding against copyright infringements.
Why Creative Commons
Creative Commons is a digital platform, an ingenious means of allowing everyone involved in content creation to give out some rights to their creative works without suffering copyright injuries.
Such content creators receive due recognition as a contributor to knowledge which is shared with the world.
It also spells out, in clear terms, how you can give implied or actual consent, explaining to what extent they use your creative works.
Another reason for adopting Creative Commons is to protect one’s work from piracy; this is becoming the norm as creative works get uploaded to the digital space.
The Creative Commons route to guard against copyright infringement is becoming really popular and gaining traction fast given that it is being adopted by many scientists, media and technology companies, as well as top universities and famous artists.
Creative Commons has different parts that serve different purposes as it continues to encourage the unrestricted collective exchange of intellectualism and knowledge.
These segments are called licenses.
Creative Commons licenses
A U.S non-profit organization, Creative Commons, that was set up in 2001 came out with the Creative Common Licenses. It has different versions ranging from 1.0 to 4.0 as at December 2018.
These licenses make it possible for the owner of creative contents to change the status of their works to “some rights reserved” instead of the traditional “all rights reserved”.
The licenses are meant to develop a meeting point in copyright law since it is a non-complicated way to permit people or offer access to your creative works.
As such, people all over the world use Creative Commons licenses to add value to creative works already in circulation.
Since you want your creative works to go viral, you are left with little or no choice than adopting Creative Commons licensing.
Having adopted the licensing, you can now specify the things you allow others to do with your work.
That being said, it becomes obvious that, other than protection of one’s creative work, the most important reason for getting a Creative Commons license is to ensure that the owner of the creative content gets due credit that they deserve for the work.
Note, however, that Creative Commons licenses have not replaced copyright laws (both at the international and local levels); far from it!
However, you can use the licenses alongside copyright laws to set conditions that conform to what you desire – as far as your creative works are concerned.
Note also, that the licenses apply worldwide and are relevant as long as copyright laws continue to exist.
Types of Creative CommonsLicenses
Generally, there are six different types of Creative Commons licenses as listed below. However, the first one – CCO – is standard or has been an original copyright licensing code for creative works even before the internet was born.
The licenses are:
- CCO
- CC BY (CC Attribution)
- CC BY-SA (CC Attribution-ShareAlike)
- CC BY-ND (CC Attribution-NoDerivatives)
- CC BY-NC (CC Attribution-NonCommercial)
- CC BY-NC-SA (CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike)
- CC BY-NC-ND (CC Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives)
A Quick summary comparing the limits of Creative Common licenses
Whereas CC BY (CC Attribution)andCC BY-SA (CC Attribution-ShareAlike) allows you to share and remix for commercial use as long as you give attribution,CC BY-NC (CC Attribution-NonCommercial) and CC BY-NC-SA (CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike), on the other hand, allows the creation of derivative works for non-commercial purposes with the right attribution given.
While CC BY-NC-ND (CC Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives)does not allow for a remix or commercial purposes, attribution must, however, be given when the content is shared. CC BY-NC (CC Attribution-NonCommercial), conversely, allows for remixing of materials even though it bars reuse of the content for commercial purposes, In any case, attribution is required when distributing to others.
The most common one, CCO, allows everyone access to creative materials without restriction globally since it is on public domains.
This license does not require attribution but, instead, allows users to modify the content to suit their needs – which can be for unlimited commercial purposes.
Be that as it may, there is a compatibility clause in the 3.0 and 4.0 versions of the ShareAlike licenses that allow the derivative contents to use other licenses instead of the ones used on the original work thanks to Creative Commons that has declared that the other licenses are compatible, in this respect.
Attributes individual Creative Commons licenses
CCO
This license is also known as “no rights reserved,” meaning that owners of copyrighted works relinquish their rights and interests over their works.
They allow others to use them as they deem fit without any form of restrictions.
In other words, the contents are available for public use and can be used to do anything since there is absolutely no need to acknowledge the source of the content.
CCO gives content creators the choice to waiver the exclusive rights they enjoy as the owner of creative work.
CCO is used by Creative Commons to publish materials globally to the public domain.This means that images, audio, video, and other kinds of contents categorized as CCO are free for use for both commercial and non-commercial purposes.
The effectiveness of CCO is based on the fact that usage is not restricted by the jurisdiction where the content work is created or to be used.
The essence of it is to give content users the unreserved opportunity to have access to the rights in areas that have copyright laws which could have barred the use of such contents in the first place.
In any case, there are some Jurisdictions where waivers will not work if it is a three-tier instrument. Such an implementation regime is not exclusively determined by the waiver, though.
The second-tier instrument can be likened to the Attribution-only license, however, the conditions for such an attribution is not attached to it.
Lastly, there is a non-affirmation clause binding the content owner so that a user of the said content will not be stopped from performing actions which are in accordance with what the copyright holder has in mind when/if the license and the waiver are not handled as planned.
CC BY (CC Attribution)
This Creative Commons License permits you to use the creative works, but subject to the owner of the work receiving due credit from you.
With this license, anyone can make use of your works in any way that suits their purpose – and even profit from it in a commercial sense.
The rule is simple: content users are to acknowledge the source or creator of the content and also show the parts where the original work got adapted from in the form of an outward-bound link or other similar methods.
It is the most amenable among the licenses.
Nonetheless, you do not use the content in a manner that shows that the content creator is in support or knows about your own work. This indemnity clause is crucial –, especially in the online space.
Furthermore, you would be required to get their permission if you do not want to acknowledge them or you want them, on the other hand, to endorse what you have done with their idea/creation.
Users of CC BY (CC Attribution) are not affected by the following rights:
- Fair dealing on the part of the users with other copyright limitations and exceptions that are applicable
- The moral rights of the author
- Privacy or publicity rights that other people possess with respect to how the creative work is used or even in the work itself
CC BY-SA (CC Attribution-ShareAlike)
The choice of this type of license is an option if you decide to use other people’s creative work for commercial activities.
All they want in return is for you to recognize them as the owner and to also protect your works with the same kind of license.
It is free, like an open-source software license.
Later works that are also byproducts of your work will also use the same license as long as they intend to serve commercial purposes in as much as you have altered the original content.
When using any creative work licensed with this option, you must understand that the conditions stated on how to use it can be waived if the copyright holder grants you permission.
Hence, you must not forget to let others clearly know the terms on the license issued for it when distributing the adapted material.
This Creative Commons is meant to represent licenses that warrant the modification of the works to be published under similar Creative Commons licenses as the source document.
This option is also referred to as ‘Copyleft licenses’ named after free materials or free licensed software that has a share-alike condition.
The Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) license was adopted by Wikipedia foundation and Wikipedia community in June 2009 as the content license for their sites which means future users must not change the restrictions on the derivatives of works taken from Wikipedia.
CC BY-ND (CC Attribution-NoDerivatives)
This is a Creative Commons license which allows people to make use of other people’s creative works the way they want either publicly or privately and even for commercial purposes.
This license gives you access to understand the information in the work and apply it in any form you want.
However, you must not give it to others for general use in a changed form.
You also have to acknowledge the content creator.
It also specifies that you cannot restrict others from using the material by technical measures from what the license authorizes.
Authors with creative works under the license of CC BY-ND (CC Attribution-NoDerivatives) do not grant permission to content users to remix their works.
They can only allow sharing or distributing exact copies to maintain the credibility of the work.
A disadvantage of CC-BY-ND (CC Attribution-NoDerivatives) is that if it is an instructional material, other content users won’t be able to work on it to add more valuable knowledge to it especially if the information becomes stale or is no longer applicable.
CC BY-NC (CC Attribution-NonCommercial)
Creative works protected under this type of Creative Commons license gives users of other people’s material permission to use it as they deem fit but not for the mass-market.
It is important to point out that you must give the necessary credit to the content creator.
But the good side of it is that it is not compulsory to use the same type of license on the modified form of the work.
CC BY-NC (CC Attribution-NonCommercial) allows the user of the content to examine, interpret, and perform the work as understood in whatever form he or she desires in as much as it is not to make money from such.
The license also allows the user to share the creative work without cost, either independently, as a collection, or even as a fragment of a bigger project.
With CC BY-NC (CC Attribution-NonCommercial), it is easy to work upon and add more relevant information to the work as the license does not limit the freedom to share or give out the modified version which must be licensed with a CC BY-NC also.
CC BY-NC-SA (CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike)
The license grants you permission to make use of another person’s work in any form convenient for you but you must consent not to market the product for-profit purposes.
You have to cite the owner of the creative work and ensure you get a similar license for the adapted form of the content.
You must also concur with the sharing of your modified works using the same terms with the creative works you used.
When using creative content under the CC BY-NC-SA (CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike) license, you can rework and update the work as necessary, but you must attribute to the author by putting a link to the original material.
Giving the right credit involves mentioning the name of the artist/creator/writer and the parties in the attribution, a license notice, a disclaimer notice, and a copyright notice.
The modified form can also not be used for commercial purposes.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) uses this Creative Commons License for its Open Courseware Project.
CC BY-NC-ND (CC Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives)
Choosing this type of Creative Commons license means you can take a content creator’s work and use it or distribute it for a cause while giving due honor to its owner.
Under this license, you will be unable to change or adapt any of the materials as well as attempt to sell it to make money.
No changing, no selling!
Any creative work licensed under CC BY-NC-ND (CC Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives) means you may share the work in its complete form, without any alteration but with the NoDerivatives part, any addition to the material cannot be distributed to others.
All these conditions make it a bit confining or restrictive to the users of materials licensed with it as it does not allow for commercialization or modification.
Where to start
Did you know that it is free and will take you only a few minutes to do the registration? So, if you have an image, a video or audio, and written materials that you want in the limelight and you don’t mind others using, reworking, or adding to your repertoire of knowledge, consider using Creative Commons.
You will be doing yourself a great favor making it available through a Creative Commons license.
It is not difficult to get a license as all it requires is to visit www.creativecommons.org and follow the instructions to determine the type of license that would be best for you as you create content or try to use other people’s contents online.
Getting any of the licenses will convey to people the limits to what they can do and cannot do with your creative work.
It also means you have given a form of protection to people such as students, scientists, educators, researchers, etc. who will make use of your work as they don’t have to think about breaking any copyright laws – especially if you stick to the terms and conditions stated on the site.
It will be an opportunity for this set of people to use your work as a starting point to come up with something better so much so that your immediate community (and the world at large) can benefit from.
As your creative works continue to get the right form of exposure, with time, it will become a source of income as people begin to pay attribution for making use of it for their own purposes.
Conclusion
I hope you have learned a thing or two about what Creative Commons is and the types of licenses content creators in the online space have to deal with?
The beauty of Creative Commons licenses is that they are global since they involve a collaborative effort where experts from the copyright world get involved too.