How to use Creative Commons

The works of pho­to­graph­ers, musicians, and writers are copy­righted, meaning they can’t be freely used or dis­trib­uted by others. The artists them­selves can choose to what extent their work is available to others without users having to ask for per­mis­sion every time. Through the use of various Creative Commons licences, media content can be shared for anyone to use. The com­plic­ated legal work behind copy­right­ing can be avoided through these standard licensing agree­ments.

Creative Commons (CC) is a global char­it­able or­gan­isa­tion based in the US that offers different licence contracts. Artists can define the public usage rights of any in­di­vidu­al piece of their work through one of these Creative Commons licences, choosing the licence that reflects the re­stric­tions they want to impose. CC licences are available for a variety of media types, including images, texts, music, videos, and more. The best-known example for the use of Creative Commons is the photo portal Flickr.

There are six Creative Commons licences to choose from that use com­bin­a­tions of the different licence modules mentioned above:

• CC BY: CC BY grants un­res­tric­ted access (for com­mer­cial as well as non-com­mer­cial purposes)–but users must include a credit for the name of the creator (BY).
  
  
• CC BY-SA: This licence grants dis­tri­bu­tion and revision of works for com­mer­cial and non-com­mer­cial purposes. Along with a credit for the rights holder, a CC BY-SA licence stip­u­lates that any new creations stemming from the original are licensed under the same exact terms. This means that a user may choose to edit a CC BY-SA-licenced image and sub­sequently re­dis­trib­ute it, but this edited image will also be free for others to edit and re­dis­trib­ute under CC BY-SA con­di­tions.
  
  
• CC BY-ND: This Creative Commons licence allows both com­mer­cial and non-com­mer­cial re­dis­tri­bu­tion, but the work is not allowed to be edited in any way. The author must also be credited.
  
  
• CC BY-NC: Artworks re­gistered under a CC BY-NC licence may be edited but only for private purposes. The new images must be credited to the original creator and remain non-com­mer­cial.
  
  
• CC BY-NC-SA: The Creative Commons licence BY-NC-SA permits users to edit works, provided they do so non-com­mer­cially, credit the original creator, and license their new work under identical terms to the original. 
  
  
• CC BY-NC-ND: CC BY-NC-ND has the most re­stric­tions of the Creative Commons licences. Users may obtain and share work, but they must credit the creator, make no changes, and only use the work for non-com­mer­cial purposes.

The Licence CC0 is a special case among licences – it marks a work as public property. The property creator and owner waives every right they have to the work, meaning that it can be used, shared, edited, and re­pub­lished without re­stric­tion – even for com­mer­cial purposes. If an author or artist publishes work under a CC0 licence, the work is simply released into the public domain. This un­res­tric­ted licence is usually used for public databases, like image databases Pixabay and Unsplash.

For website operators looking to include free images or texts on their website, it’s crucial to follow the correct procedure for including licencing in­form­a­tion. The mandatory in­form­a­tion in all BY licenced photos, for example, is:

• Name of the creator
• Title of the work
• Link to the work or the author
• Reference link to the par­tic­u­lar licence

Where possible, this in­form­a­tion should be placed directly under the work. But a reference in a separate sources or photo credits section is also accepted.

An example of a correctly ref­er­enced image:

The following image on Flickr demon­strates a pho­to­graph published under a CC licence. It has no re­stric­tions on public access for sharing, editing, and even using for com­mer­cial gains, under the sole condition that the author and licence are ref­er­enced pub­lic­ally (license CC BY). This would look as follows:

• Link to the photo (photos tagged on Flickr with At­tri­bu­tion 3.0 Generic (CC BY 3.0))
• Link to the author
• CC-BY 3.0

The code 3.0 explains which licence version is in operation. Some languages still operate under the 2.0 version, but versions are com­pat­ible with each other.

The Creative Commons concept offers many ad­vant­ages for bloggers, website operators, or web­mas­ters in their daily work.

• Legal clarity and security: Creative Commons removes the com­plic­ated legal matters for users. CC licences mean complete legal clarity, without the need for complex usage ne­go­ti­ations.
  
  
• Control over copyright: if you’re pub­lish­ing work under Creative Commons licencing, you still retain control of the copyright terms. The artist decides in which context the work may be used, and can ban the work from being used on ques­tion­able sites (e.g. por­no­graph­ic sites).
  
  
• Room for ad­just­ment: CC licences aren’t set in stone. There’s always the option to enter into in­di­vidu­al ne­go­ti­ations with artists. For example, if you want to use a work com­mer­cially but it’s re­gistered with a BY-NC licence, you can contact the artist directly and negotiate your own private terms of use.
  
  
• Large diversity of media: thanks to the sim­pli­city of these free CC licences, the pool of available work is rising steadily. Today, there’s a vast selection of images, songs, texts, and more to choose from.

Despite the many ad­vant­ages of Creative Commons licences, there are certain risks attached to using free works published under these terms.

• Violation of image rights: this risk is highest with pho­to­graphs, because even free images aren’t always free to use – es­pe­cially when third parties are involved. A pho­to­graph­er only has rights to his work, not the motif in the image. For more on this, refer to our guide to image rights online.
  
   
• No liability of licensor: the licensor bears no liability what­so­ever when it comes to rights vi­ol­a­tions. For example, if a user selects a photo of a model but the model holds their image rights, then the user is pro­sec­uted, not the CC licensor.
  
   
• Only full licences: an in­com­plete or invalid licence means no licence. So if you’re using Creative Commons images on your site, you should check the licencing me­tic­u­lously and be sure to use the image correctly to avoid trouble.
  
   
• Doc­u­ment­a­tion: works and their cor­res­pond­ing licences must always be doc­u­mented precisely. For example, if the artist removes a CC licence on their work and claims that they never released the work under one, it’s the user’s re­spons­ib­il­ity to be able to prove that this isn’t the case.

Free works–be they music, images, or texts–are an important part of the (online) media landscape. They provide diversity, and thanks to the sim­pli­city of Creative Commons licences, there’s a large pool of free work available that anyone can use, re­gard­less of finances. But when using CC licences, you should always be con­scien­tious. The artist has made their work available to use for free, so you should stick to the rules; in other words, comply with the licence agreement, include all mandatory in­form­a­tion, and protect yourself from the risk of a lawsuit. And even if an artist releases their work into the public domain with a CC0 licence, it’s still re­com­men­ded to show your respect with a name credit and link to their other works.