Creative Commons Licenses
Creative Commons Licenses
Creative Commons Licenses are free standard licenses that allow copyright holders to easily grant rights to use their work to the public.
Creative Commons Licenses are suitable for publications and datasets (as of version 4.0). They are not suited to license software or code.
Introductory Video on Licenses for Publications, Datasets and Software
Types of Licenses
The non-profit organization Creative Commons offers 6 different licenses. You can combine them according to the modular principle:
| License | Condition | Rights |
|---|---|---|
|
|
Attribution | You may reproduce, distribute, make publicly available, modify and commercially exploit the work. |
|
|
Attribution |
One may reproduce, distribute, make publicly available, modify and commercially exploit the work, but must share it under the same conditions. |
|
|
Attribution |
One may reproduce, distribute, make publicly available and commercially exploit the work, but not modify it. |
|
|
Attribution |
One may reproduce, distribute, make publicly available and modify the work, but not use it commercially. |
|
|
Attribution Non-commercial Share alike |
One may reproduce, distribute, make publicly available and modify the work, but not use it commercially, and must share it under the same conditions. |
|
|
Attribution Non-commercial No derivatives |
One may reproduce, distribute and make the work publicly available, but not use it commercially or modify it. |
You can find more info at: www.creativecommons.org
How Do I Create CC Licenses?
- First, determine the copyright. Only as the copyright owner can you license your work freely.
- Determine if you are using other works that are also licensed and restrict you in your choice of licenses (e.g. -SA- additions of CC licenses).
- Choose a CC license, e.g. with the License Chooser. We recommend open licenses, such as CC0 and CC-BY.
- Write a short text on your work (e.g. on the title page). For example:
This work is licensed under a CC-BY 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Important are: The name of the license and the link to the license text.
Alternatives
- You save this text in a separate text document (e.g. license.txt) and upload it with the publication.
- You select a preset license in a repository when you upload your work.
Questions about Sharing Your Publication with a License?
Get in touch: oa@ub.uzh.ch