Using Images with Confidence

Creative Commons licenses provide a standardized way for creators to grant specific permission for their use of their work.

• A combination of four elements or conditions result in six licenses.
• Each Creative Commons (CC) license includes one to three of the following four elements.
• Example from an image at OpenVerse.

Attribution (BY)

• a work may be used if the author/licensor is credited
• ALL six licenses require Attribution (BY)

Non-Commercial (NC)

• a work may only be used for non-commercial purposes

No Derivative Works (ND)

• a work may not be changed in anyway
• NEVER featured with Share-Alike (SA) element

Share-Alike (SA)

• a derivative work (any changed work) must receive the same license that was applied to the original work
• only applies to derivative works
• NEVER featured with the No Derivative Works (ND) element

Each license element has an associated graphic.

These are the six available Creative Commons licenses which are combinations of the four elements above. See "About CC Licenses".

    Attribution CC-BY

   Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA

     Attribution-NoDerivs CC BY-ND

     Attribution-NonCommercial CC BY-NC

     Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA

     Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs CC BY-NC-ND

graphics from Creative Commons

CC0 (No Rights Reserved) is a Public Domain Dedication offered by the Creative Commons for creators who opt out of copyright protection (though this opt-out may not apply to every jurisdiction).

Public Domain Mark (No Known Copyright) allows institutions to communicate when a work is no longer under copyright and therefore can be freely used by others.

graphics from Creative Commons

graphic from Creative Commons