Creative Commons Licensing

Creative Commons licenses are released by Creative Commons(CC), a non-profit organization. Users on Flickr or other sharing platforms could publish or access resources legally by adding or knowing these. Unlike “all rights reserved”, Creative Commons licenses is a more flexible copyright model and could be “some rights reserved.” Starting with the most accommodating license type to the most restrictive license type, there are six main types of Creative Commons licenses:

Attribution License 

You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your copyrighted work - and derivative works based upon it - but only if they give you credit.

Attribution-ShareAlike License

You lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial reasons, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.

Attribution-NoDerivs License

It allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to you.

Attribution-NonCommercial License

This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License

This license is the most restrictive of the six main licenses, allowing redistribution. This license is often called the “free advertising” license because it allows others to download your works and share them with others as long as they mention you and link back to you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.