Choosing the Right Creative Commons License
Choosing a Creative Commons license depends on how you want others to use your work. Some licenses allow adaptation and sharing with minimal restrictions, while others limit commercial use or modifications. This guide will help you select a license that aligns with your goals for sharing, collaboration, and control.
Start with Your Goals
Before selecting a license, consider how you want your work to be used:
- Do you want others to adapt or modify your work?
- Do you want to allow commercial use?
- Do you want to require others to share adaptations under the same license?
- Do you want to limit how your work is reused?
Your answers to these questions will guide your license choice.
License Decision Guide
Maximum sharing and flexibility:
Choose CC BY
Require same license on adaptations:
Choose CC BY-SA
Limit use to noncommercial purposes:
Choose CC BY-NC or CC BY-NC-SA
Do not allow modifications:
Choose CC BY-ND or CC BY-NC-ND
All Creative Commons licenses require attribution.
Understanding License Elements
Attribution (BY):
Credit must be given
ShareAlike (SA):
Same license required for adaptations
NonCommercial (NC):
No commercial use
NoDerivatives (ND):
No modifications allowed
Examples in Teaching
- Sharing lecture slides for others to adapt → CC BY
- Departmental shared curriculum → CC BY-SA
- Materials restricted to noncommercial use → CC BY-NC
- Finalized resource with no edits allowed → CC BY-ND
Key Considerations When Choosing a License
- 🔒 More restrictions limit reuse and collaboration
- ✏️ “NoDerivatives” prevents adaptation
- ⚠️ “NonCommercial” can be unclear in some contexts
- 🌍 Open licenses support broader access and sharing
Ready to Choose a License?
Use the Creative Commons License Chooser to select a license and generate an attribution statement.
“Creative Commons License Materials” by Creative Commons is licensed under CC BY 4.0 and available from CreativeCommons.org .
Text and instructional content on this page are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license .
Images and third-party materials are used under license and may not be reused without
permission.
