Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that helps overcome legal obstacles to the sharing of knowledge and creativity.
Creative Commons provides Creative Commons licenses and public domain tools that give every person and organization in the world a free, simple, and standardized way to grant copyright permissions for creative and academic works; ensure proper attribution; and allow others to copy, distribute, and make use of those works.
Want to find an image or resource that you can use for your work? use CC Search!
CC Search is a tool that allows users to search for content with publicly known open licenses and works within the public domain. CC Search searches across over 300 million images and sources. Users can search based on the terms they enter and reuse the content based on the license requirements of the material.
Creative Commons Licenses
Creative Commons offers six different types of licenses. More information about the licenses can be found here.
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0)
Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
Public Domain License
Creative Commons also offers a public domain license. The public domain license (also known as CC0) allows the copyright holder to waive their interests in their works and thereby place the work as completely as possible in the public domain.
Creative Commons Public Domain (CC0)
Want to publish your content with a publicly known license? Not sure which license is the right fit? Use the Creative Commons Choose a License Tool!
The Creative Commons Choose a License Tool is an easy to use interface which helps you to pick the appropriate Creative Commons license for your work. By answering a few simple questions, you will be presented with the license you should use. You will be able to review the license text, legal code, icon, and embedded code to apply to your materials.