Creative Commons Licensing is a way for people to share their creative work with others. It lets people choose how they want to share their work, so that it can be used for things like websites, movies, songs, and books. With Creative Commons, people can choose to give away their work for free, or give people permission to use their work as long as they give credit.
Creative Commons offers a range of licenses that enable creators to share their work with the world. These licenses provide creators with the legal framework to protect their work, while still allowing it to be shared and remixed. The type of license chosen will depend on the creator’s wishes for how the work can be used, as there are different levels of restriction.
The six main Creative Commons licenses are:
1. Attribution (CC BY): This license allows others to distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon a creator’s work, even for commercial purposes, as long as proper credit is given.
2. Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA): This license is similar to the Attribution license, but requires that any derivatives must also be distributed under the same license.
3. Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC): This license allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon a creator’s work, but only for non-commercial purposes.
4. Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA): This license is similar to the Attribution-NonCommercial license, but requires that any derivatives must also be distributed under the same license.
5. Attribution-NoDerivs (CC BY-ND): This license allows for redistribution of the original work, but not any derivatives.
6. Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDeriv
Educators should use Creative Commons licensing when publishing their work for five main reasons. First, by using Creative Commons licenses, educators give their students and the general public the opportunity to use their work without fear of infringing copyright. Second, Creative Commons licensing can help protect the educator’s work from being used without their permission. Third, Creative Commons licensing helps spread knowledge and resources to those who may not have access to them otherwise. Fourth, educators can benefit from the potential exposure that comes from allowing their work to be used by others. Lastly, Creative Commons licensing helps promote collaboration and the sharing of ideas within the educational community.
Next time you publish consider a Creative Commons license. Share your work.