Open Science for Arts, Design and Music/Guidelines/Creative Commons Licenses/CC Licences

Creative Commons Licenses

Creative Commons (CC) Licenses are probably the most known and most widely used copyright non-exclusive licenses. CC Licenses promote the sharing and re-use of creativity and knowledge by replacing the default 'all right reserved' approach of copyright, with the 'some rights' reserved approach. In other words, they enable right holders (licensors) to release some of the rights that are granted by copyright law. CC licenses grant others (licensees) permission to use, share and modify licensors' creative works, and clearly define the conditions for such re-use.
CC licenses are free of charge and can be used for any type of copyrighted work (including research data, educational resources, scientific publications, music, pictures, databases, sound, video etc), except for softwares. They are irrevocable: licensors are not allowed to change towards a more restrictive license as this would break the whole system. However, licensors are always allowed to change the license to a less restrictive one (e.g. from CC BY-SA-NC to CC0), as this change does not create any troubles with previous usages of the work. CC Licenses are non-exclusive (creators and owners can enter various licensing arrangements for the same work at any time) and do not affect moral rights.

CC licenses vs. Copyright

CC Licenses do not substitute copyright laws but simply offer right holders the possibility to organize and manage rights within the framework of existing copyright legislation. CC licenses are built within copyright law. A such they can be applied only to copyrightable works by the right holder. CC licenses cannot be applied to works that are included in the worldwide public domain. They do not limit or suppress any of the rights that are granted under the exceptions and limitations to copyright. Other types of intellectual property (e.g., patents and trademarks) are not covered by CC licenses. Creators retain the copyright and their right to be credited, while permitting reusers to copy and distribute their work. They work internationally and have they same lifespan as copyright.

CC licenses

CC licenses provide a range of options for creators who want to share their works with the public rather than reserving all rights under copyright.
They consist of three layers design:

Design layer	Definition
'lawyer readable' legal code	these are the legal terms and conditions that can be enforced in court
'human readable' common deeds	this is plain language summary of legal terms and conditions
'machine readable' metadata	this layer is written into a format for use by search algorithm and other softwares.

There are six CC licenses that are a combination of one or more of the following four elements:

Icon	Right	Description
	BY Attribution	this means that the author (not the right holder) must be credited. All CC licenses include this condition.
	SA Share Alike	if you modify, transform or build upon the work, you have to share/distribute the derivative work under the same or compatible license.
	ND No-Derivatives	it is allowed to adapt but not to share adaptations of the work.
	NC Non-Commercial	commercial use of the work is not allowed.

The main decisions that a licensor must take when choosing one of the six CC licenses are:

• Do I want to allow commercial use?
• Do I want to allow derivative works? If so, do I want the adaptations to be shared under the same or compatible license?

Depending of the answers, the licensor can choose among six different license options, from least to most restrictive:

Button	License Name	Abbreviation	Description	Open
	Attribution	CC BY	people can use and adapt the work for any purpose (also commercial) as long as they give credit to the creator.	√
	Attribution-ShareAlike	CC BY-SA	people can use and adapt the work for any purpose (also commercial) as long as they give credit to the creator and share the derivative work under the same or compatible license.	√
	Attribution-NonCommercial	CC BY-NC	people can use and adapt the work for non-commercial purpose only as long as they give credit to the creator.
	Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike	CC BY-NC-SA	people can use and adapt the work for non-commercial purpose only as long as they give credit to the creator and share the derivative work under the same or compatible license.
	Attribution-NoDerivatives	CC BY-ND	people can use and share the unadapted work for any purpose (also commercial) as long as they give credit to the creator.
	Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives	CC BY-NC-ND	people can use and share the unadapted work for non-commercial purpose only as long as they give credit to the creator.

CC licenses and the Public Domain

In addition to the CC license suite, CC also has two public domain tools. Public domain tools and licenses are not equivalent.

Button	Tool Name and Abbreviation	Description	Open
	CC0	this tool can be used by creators who wants to dedicate their work to the public domain. However, in some countries creators are not allowed to renounce all rights granted by copyright law. In this case, CC0 includes a “backup plan” license that allows anyone worldwide to use the work unconditionally for any purposes	√
	Public Domain Mark	this mark informs the public about the public domain status of a work. It does not have a legal effect and is used to signal that a work is free of all copyright restrictions.	√

Open vs Not-Open CC Licenses

According to the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities, all users should have a free, irrevocable, worldwide right of access and permission to copy, use, distribute, (...), make and distribute derivative works in any digital medium, for any responsible purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship. Therefore, only three CC licenses are completely in line with such definition of “open”: CC0, CC-BY and CC-BY-SA. The other four CC licenses - CC BY-ND, CC BY-NC, CC BY-NC-ND and CC BY-NC-SA - are not considered “open” for they are more restrictive than the "open" requirements.

Creative commons license spectrum by Shaddim is licenced under CC BY 4.0