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Creative Commons Licenses Explained

The following chart summarizes different types of creative commons licenses (including the public domain license) and creative freedoms that they give. Attribution is required with all types of creative commons licenses and so is the right to copy and publish. Note that copyrighted works do not allow any of the following: copying and publishing the work, commercial use of the work, modifying and adapting the work and changing the license.

Finding Creative Commons Content

Creative Commons licenses

The Creative Commons organization was founded in 2001 as a means of permitting creators to license their work for public use under conditions they specify. Although not an alternative to copyright and not an indication that a work is part of the public domain, Creative Commons licenses  gives users of copyrighted works greater creative freedom. Creative commons licenses differ in the amount and type of creative freedom they allow depending on the nature of the work and also depending on the decisions of the creator of the work or the copyright holder.

Adapted from the University of Florida's Creative Commons LibGuide licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

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