Choose a Creative Commons Licence for your book

Creative Commons licences provide a simple, standardised way to grant copyright permissions for creative and academic works; while ensuring proper attribution; and allowing others to copy, distribute, and make use of those works. When you are choosing a Creative Commons licence, it is important to think carefully about how you want your resource to be used, as different licences provide different permissions.

We also ask that you consider the FAIR principles that underpin the open access movement as you choose a Creative Commons licence. FAIR stands for Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable.

Use the Creative Commons Licence Chooser to select the licence you want to use.

Creative Commons Licence elements

Each Creative Commons Licence is made up of different elements:

BY – Attribution – Credit must be given to the creator.

SA – Share Alike – Adaptations must be shared under the same terms.

NC – Non Commercial – Only non commercial uses of the work are permitted.

ND – No Derivatives or adaptations of the work are permitted.

Creative Commons Licence types

CC BY –  A CC BY or Attribution licence, allows anyone to re-mix, re-use and re-share the work, as long as attribution is provided to the creator.

CC BY-SA – Attribution Share Alike – A CC BY-SA or Share Alike licence, allows anyone to re-mix, re-use, and re-share, so long as attribution is provided to the creator and any new work is re-shared freely under the same licence. This licence permits commercial use.

CC BY-NC – Attribution Non Commercial – The CC BY-NC or Non Commercial licence, allows the work to be re-used and remixed, and re-shared, as long as attribution is provided to the creator and the work is not used for commercial purposes.

CC BY-NC-SA – Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike – The CC BY-NC-SA licence allows the work to be re-mixed, re-used, and re-shared so long as attribution is provided to the creator, the work is not used for commercial purposes, and any new work is re-shared freely under the same licence.

CC BY-ND – Attribution No Derivatives –  A CC BY-ND or Non-Derivative licence, allows anyone to re-use and re-share the work, as long as credit is provided to the creator, and no changes are made to the original work. This licence permits commercial use.

CC BY-NC-ND – Attribution Non-Commercial No-Derivatives – The CC BY-NC-ND license allows the work to be re-used and re-shared, so long as attribution is provided to the creator, the work is not used for commercial purposes, and no changes are made to the original work.

CC0 – CC0 (CC Zero) is a public dedication tool that means the rights holder has waived all copyright protection rights and placed the work in the public domain. This means the resource can be used for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial, without the need for attribution.

Some considerations:

• A Share-Alike licence (SA) will ensure that any new work incorporating yours must also be made freely available under the same licence for others to use and re-mix.
• A Non-Commercial (NC) licence will prevent anyone from using your resource for commercial purposes.
• A No-Derivatives (ND) licence will significantly limit how your resource can be reused, as this licence prevents the resources from being altered in any way. It may also prevent you from being able to adapt your book on another platform or in a different format. There may be good reasons for choosing this licence, e.g. if the content of your resource could potentially become misleading if it was changed in any way, but please consider carefully before choosing an ND licence.

Adapted from:

• Choosing a Creative Commons Licence for your resource by University of Edinburgh, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
• About CC Licenses by Creative Commons, licensed under a CC BY 4.0 licence.