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 licenses, 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 or­ga­ni­za­tion based in the US that offers different license contracts. Artists can define the public usage rights of any in­di­vid­ual piece of their work through one of these Creative Commons licenses, choosing the license that reflects the re­stric­tions they want to impose. CC licenses 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 licenses to choose from that use com­bi­na­tions of the different license 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 license grants dis­tri­b­u­tion and revision of works for com­mer­cial and non-com­mer­cial purposes. Along with a credit for the rights holder, a CC BY-SA license 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-licensed 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 license 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 license 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 license 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 licenses. 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 License CC0 is a special case among licenses – 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 license, the work is simply released into the public domain. This un­re­strict­ed license 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 licensing in­for­ma­tion. The mandatory in­for­ma­tion in all BY licensed photos, for example, is:

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

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 license. It has no re­stric­tions on public access for sharing, editing, and even using for com­mer­cial gains, under the sole condition that the author and license 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 license 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 licenses mean complete legal clarity, without the need for complex usage ne­go­ti­a­tions.
  
  
• Control over copyright: if you’re pub­lish­ing work under Creative Commons licensing, 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 licenses 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 license, 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 licenses, 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 licenses, 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 licenses: an in­com­plete or invalid license means no license. So if you’re using Creative Commons images on your site, you should check the licensing metic­u­lous­ly and be sure to use the image correctly to avoid trouble.
  
   
• Doc­u­men­ta­tion: works and their cor­re­spond­ing licenses must always be doc­u­ment­ed precisely. For example, if the artist removes a CC license 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 licenses, there’s a large pool of free work available that anyone can use, re­gard­less of finances. But when using CC licenses, 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 license 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 license, it’s still rec­om­mend­ed to show your respect with a name credit and link to their other works.