Creative Commons Basics

Welcome back to the Sourcing Series! In this segment, we’re introducing readers to Creative Commons licenses. These are online and easy-to-use licenses that clearly outline the possible uses of a material based on rightsholders’ preferences.

In Introduction to Licenses and Copyright, we discussed the legal concepts of fair use, copyright, and licensing. Then in Basics of Public Domain we gave some examples of public domain as a copyright status, specifically the end of copyright, which allows people to freely use and adapt materials. In general, the DLP prefers public domain materials but we also regularly use Creative Commons licensed materials as well.

Waiting for materials to enter the public domain isn’t the only way you can be allowed to use something you don’t own the rights to. People can license their work in a way that defines how they want to allow it to be used. This is where Creative Commons or CC licenses come in.

You probably noticed some CC licensing around AAI or on Open Context. That “CC” stands for Creative Commons, the name of the licensing provider. Creative Commons, as a nonprofit organization, develops widely used copyright licenses often for online materials. Through Creative Commons, copyright holders can choose among various license options to share their work under standardized permission and restriction levels. You can learn more about Creative Commons’ work on their website.

Their licenses are pretty common and they’re easy to spot out in the wild of the internet once you know what to look for. Especially, if you’ve memorized their licensing symbols! For example, on Wikimedia Commons, you’ll see CC0 a lot. CC0 is a Creative Commons dedication that…uh…dedicates a piece to the public domain. This gives publics the ability to use the material as if it already was within the public domain.

Beyond this, a cool thing about CC licenses is that they allow laypeople (aka everyone who is not a lawyer, legal scholar, paralegal, etc.) to understand copyright in an easy way. It allows folks to share their works in a way that protects themselves and their property rights in the ways that they’d like.

You’ll see CC licenses abbreviated as a series of initials. As an example, we often use CC-BY-SA for the DLP products. CC refers to Creative Commons. BY means something requires attribution (aka state who the author, owner, copyrights holder is). BY stipulations are important if a creator/rights holder wants credit for being the owner/creator of the work. If you’re an academic this is similar to citation. Someone wants credit for originating the material (that is, the work is BY someone!). We often include these in image captions or in image credits sections.

In addition to attribution, sometimes owners they want to encourage folks to continue to share materials in the same way. So, they add the SA. “SA” stands for Share Alike. That means that wherever and in whatever you use the materials, the authors would like you to share your new work under the same license. That aspect encourages folks to continue to share their materials, supporting open access while still giving creators credit.

While you don’t need to memorize every license, knowing the basics helps you use online sourced material confidently and correctly. You can learn more about a few other kinds of CC licenses in FAIR Finds: The Walkthrough and the game for how they relate to archaeology.

CC licenses are also a great reminder to add licenses to works you create or own! Licensing is worth the extra step, because in some places without clear licensing people can’t use your work. And adding a license can be as easy as stating “The text for the article Creative Commons Basics by Paulina F. Przystupa is licensed CC BY and available from the Alexandria Archive Institute”. Or just including the initials by the author’s name! (Przystupa CC BY 4.0)

In upcoming Sourcing Series segments, we’ll explore best practices around attribution and citation. They’re an important aspect of upholding licensing requirements. Because of that, we provide examples of how we’ve given credit and linked to materials in our Data Stories! So, if you need some help figuring out the best way to attribute or give folk credit check out our future Sourcing Series entries!

Image Credits: The main header image is an adaptation of an Adobe stock image that we use as a logo for the Data Literacy Program with the added title for the series and the specific title of this article. That is “Sourcing Series – Creative Commons Basics” by Paulina F. Przystupa from the DLP / CC BY. The second image is a cropped copy of “Foter.com_infographic_CC.jpg” by Foter from their piece “How To Attribute Creative Commons Photos” / CC BY-SA 3.0. https://foter.com/blog/how-to-attribute-creative-commons-photos/.