Understanding The Creative Commons License

The concept of licensing and copyrights can be a very intimidating concept for some artists. Don't worry, you don't have to put down your paint brushes and put on a business suit to understand copyrights and licensing. This newsletter is intended to simplify all the legal mumbo jumbo in a few paragraphs.

Did you know that when you create any piece of original art, you automatically own an All Rights Reserved copyright to that art? Well, now you do.

A license is not a copyright replacement. It works alongside copyright and enables you to determine how the world may use the art to which you own a copyright.

The Creative Commons license is a free, easy to use, do-it-yourself legal tool that lets you choose and set the conditions & permissions for the the public to share and use your creative work. It gives you the flexibility to grant either commercial or non-commercial (or both) permissions, while protecting your work and the people who use your work, so they don't have to worry about copyright infringement, as long as they abide by the conditions you have specified.

There are six basic Creative Commons licenses:

Attribution
This license lets others distribute, modify, and build upon your work, commercially and non-commercially, as long you are credited for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses.

Attribution-NoDerivs
This license allows others to redistribute your work, commercially and non-commercially, as long as it is unmodified and you are credited completely for your creation.

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
This license lets others modify, and build upon your work non-commercially only, as long as you are credited, and they license their new creation under the identical terms of your license.

Attribution-ShareAlike
This license lets others modify, and build upon your work, commercially and non-commercially, as long as you are credited, and they license their new creation under the identical terms of your license. This license is often compared to open source licenses where all new works based on your creation will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial and non-commercial use.

Attribution-NonCommercial
This license lets others modify, and build upon your work non-commercially only, and although their new works must credit you and be non-commercial as well, they do not have to license their derivative works on the same terms as your original license.

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs
This license is the most restrictive of the six licenses, and only permit others to download your works and share them with others as long as you are credited. This license does not allow them to modify or build upon your work in anyway. This license also restricts your work being used commercially by someone else.