What are the Creative
Commons licences?
Licence elements
Each CC licence is based around a combination of four ‘optional’ licence elements. These elements
allow the creator to select the different ways they want the public to use their work. The creator can
combine these elements to produce the CC licence they want. Licensees can use CC material in any
way they like as long as they follow the conditions set by the elements included in the licence.
Each element has its own icon and abbreviation, making them easy to identify:
Attribution (BY)
You must credit the creator, the title and the licence the work
is under. For more information on how to attribute a work, see
the “How to Attribute Creative Commons Material” guide,
http://creativecommons.org.au/materials/attribution.pdf.
Noncommercial (NC)
Any use of the work must be for noncommercial purposes only.
That means file sharing, educational use and film festivals are all
ok, but advertising and for-profit uses are not.
No Derivative Works (ND)
Only verbatim copies of the work may be used. In other words,
you can’t change the work in any way. You need to get extra
permission if you want to crop a photo, edit down text or use a
song in a film. Basically, any remixing is out.
Share Alike (SA)
Any new work produced using this material must be made
available under the same terms. So if you do remix a work you
have to release your new work under the same licence.
Eg. Attribution-Share Alike has to stay Attribution-Share Alike.
Fact sheet v1.0
AUSTRALIA An Introduction to Creative Commons fact sheet. Permalink
and source files at http://creativecommons.org.au/factsheets/
cc-introduction. Last revised 19 June 2009.
An introduction to Creative Commons
Fact Sheet v1.0
Six standard CC licences
These licence elements are mixed and matched to create the six standard CC licences. CC does
provide other licences, but these are the ones you are most likely to see. For more information on
all the licences see http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses.
This table lists the standard licences and summarises the conditions which attach to each. Whether
you’re a licensor or a licensee, we recommend you read the full licence before using it.
Licence Buttons Types of use What others can do
Attribution (BY) Commercial and • Copy;
http://creativecommons.org/ noncommercial • Adapt or modify;
licenses/by/3.0
• Distribute (publish, display,
publicly perform or
communicate the work); and
• License to others.
Attribution- Noncommercial only • Copy;
Noncommercial • Adapt or modify;
(BY-NC) • Distribute; and
http://creativecommons.org/ • License to others.
licenses/by-nc/3.0
Attribution-Share Alike Commercial and • Copy;
(BY-SA) noncommercial • Adapt or modify;
http://creativecommons.org/ • Distribute; and
licenses/by-sa/3.0
• License to others on the same
terms as the original work.
Attribution-No Derivative Commercial and • Copy;
Works noncommercial • Distribute verbatim copies only;
(BY-ND) and
http://creativecommons.org/ • License to others.
licenses/by-nd/3.0
Attribution- Noncommercial only • Copy;
Noncommercial-Share • Adapt or modify;
Alike (BY-NC-SA) • Distribute; and
http://creativecommons.org/ • License to others on the same
licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0
terms as the original work.
Attribution- Noncommercial only • Copy;
Noncommercial- • Distribute verbatim copies only;
No Derivative Works (BY- and
NC-ND) • License to others.
http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0
Published by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation in partnership with Creative Commons Australia. This fact sheet is available under a Creative
Commons Attribution 2.5 Australia licence, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/au. The heading font, Mariana by fuex, is available under a Creative Commons Public Domain Certification,
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain and the copy font, Puritan 2.0 by benweiner, is available under the SIL Open Font License, http://scripts.sil.org/OFL.
