Creative Commons licences

Creative Commons Licences, or CC Licences for short

are free licences developed by the non-profit organisation Creative Commons. They are by far the most widespread open content licensing model. Due to its popularity and widespread use, CC can now be described as the de facto standard for open content licences. The licence texts are drafted by legal experts in complex processes and made available free of charge to anyone who wishes to use them. Six CC licences support authors in the gradual release of their content for use by the general public. What all CC licences have in common is that the author must be named for each use.

A free licence is

a standardised licence agreement. Copyright law is extremely complex and it is difficult to know under what circumstances a work may be copied for private use, made available for educational purposes or quoted. In contrast, open content licences such as the CC licences provide a simply worded statement that informs licensees what they are allowed to do, what obligations they must comply with and what they are prohibited from doing. These explanations also benefit the licensor, who is not normally a legal expert (especially not if it is the author himself). In this way, they receive all the necessary information about the rules that apply to the use of their material.

"All Creative Commons licences have many important features in common. Each of our licences helps creators retain their copyright while allowing others to copy, distribute and otherwise use their work. Each Creative Commons licence also ensures that licensors get the credit they deserve as the creator of the work. Each Creative Commons licence can be used worldwide and is valid for as long as copyright protection lasts (because our licences are based on copyright)."(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/?lang=de) (external link, opens in a new window)

All six core licences

grant the general public rights of use under certain conditions. They include the right of reproduction and worldwide redistribution. The basic condition BY (for "attribution") contained in all core licences requires the author of the work used to be named for each use. The right to publish edited versions of the work ("derivatives") can be excluded with the name part ND ("no derivatives") or limited to distribution under the same conditions in the licences with the name part SA ("share alike"). Licences with the name part NC ("non-commercial") exclude any commercial use.

The CC licences have been developed for all areas, not exclusively for science. Not everything is therefore necessarily suitable for you. The CC BY licence is recommended by the Open Access movement, as it is the freest licence. CC BY-SA is used on Wikipedia. The most restrictive licence would be CC BY-NC-ND. All licences are conceivable for an Open Access publication. There are a few points to bear in mind:

ND - the problem of prohibited editing and what falls under it

Unlike in the music sector, where remixes are part of the culture, editing the publication is often rejected in a scientific context. Context. However, it is important to note what is considered an adaptation: shortening, longer excerpts or translation, for example.

NC - commercial use

Commercial use is also very narrowly defined and its exclusion is not always advantageous, because it can restrict further distribution and, in particular, high-reach commercial re-use and thus one's own visibility. For example, a copyright-protected photo in a specialist article under CC-BY-NC may not be reused in the scientific context of a commercial online journal. Even if you hope to be mentioned in blogs and have excerpts redistributed, you should not choose an NC licence, as even the smallest advertisements turn the blog into a commercial publication.

Experience with CC BY

For over ten years now, tens of thousands of authors have published their scientific documents under CC BY licences. However, the cases of abuse feared by some have not materialised. However, anyone who places their own works under CC must also be aware that they cannot withdraw this licence. The media will remain under a free licence until the end of copyright protection, even if the CC label is removed.