A key tool of Creative Commons is legal licences that allow to replace the traditional ‘All Rights Reserved’ model with ‘Certain Rights Reserved’ – while respecting the principles of copyright law. Creative Commons licences offer a diverse set of licensing terms – freedoms and restrictions. This allows the author to determine for themselves the rules under which they want to share their work with others.
When using the licence, the creator always retains copyright, while allowing others to copy and distribute, and can additionally determine whether their use can be only under non-commercial conditions or restrict the creation of derivative works.
There are six different license types, listed from most to least permissive here:
CC BY
This license enables reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use. CC BY includes the following elements:
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/pl/legalcode
CC BY-SA
This license enables reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms. CC BY-SA includes the following elements:
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode
CC BY-NC
This license enables reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. CC BY-NC includes the following elements:
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/legalcode
CC BY-NC-SA
This license enables reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms. CC BY-NC-SA includes the following elements:
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode
CC BY-ND
This license enables reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use. CC BY-ND includes the following elements:
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/legalcode
CC BY-NC-ND
This license enables reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. CC BY-NC-ND includes the following elements:
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode