Creative Commons
Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization developed to allow users to find content and use it freely and without having to obtain copyright permissions from the creator. Creative commons also allows you to choose a specific license to place on your own work. A variety of works such as photographs, text, artwork, images, music, and videos can all be found within the Creative Commons site and used without permission, but some restrictions apply. From an individual to a large organization, any creator can grant specific copyrights by attributing specific conditions and licenses to their personal works, whether it has an "all rights reserved," or "no rights reserved," others can use the material as specified.
A search of just Creative Commons content can be performed with retrieval results of material to freely use. Creative Commons searches a wide range of material formats through various search engines such as GOOGLE* search. Click here to perform a search.
About the Creative Commons Licenses
There are six different licenses with various conditions that the author can choose to be applied to each work. Symbols are placed near the works which informs the person how it can be used. The set of conditions that the creator chooses for their works are as follows:
- Attribution: Author allows user to copy, distribute, display, and perform work as well as derivative works as long as credit is given to author as requested.
- Share Alike: Author allows user to distribute derivative works under a license that is identical to author's license.
- Noncommercial: Author allows user to copy, distribute, display, and perform work as well as derivative works, for noncommercial purposes only.
- No Derivative Works: Author allows user to copy, distribute, display, and perform only verbatim copies of work, not derivative versions.
The six licenses are:
- Attribution: License allows user to distribute, modify, and build upon original work for commercial and noncommercial purposes, as long as credit is given to author as requested.
- Attribution Share Alike: License allows user to modify and build upon original work for commercial and noncommercial purposes, as long as credit is given to author as requested.
- Attribution No Derivatives: License allows user to distribute works, commercial and non-commercial, but work must remain unchanged with credit to author.
- Attribution Non-Commercial: License allows user to modify and build upon work non-commercially as long as credit is given to author, but derivative works do not have to be licensed on the same terms.
- Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike: License allows user to modify and build upon work non-commercially, as long as credit is given to author and their derivative works follow identical terms.
- Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives: Most restrictive license that allows user to redistribute works with proper credit given and a link to author, but cannot modify or use works commercially.
Want to learn more about the Creative Commons? View one of these fun and helpful videos explaining the Creative Commons in greater detail.
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