CC License Types: A Creator’s Guide to Creative Commons Permissions

The broadest of the standard CC licences: people may share and adapt the work, including commercially, when they give appropriate credit, link to the licence, and indicate changes.

A good fit for

Maximum reach while keeping a visible connection to your name.

Keep an eye on

Credit is not optional, and BY does not license samples, co-writers’ shares, or rights you never controlled.

People may share and adapt the work, including commercially, but distributed adaptations must generally use the same or a compatible licence.

A good fit for

Open remix and collaboration ecosystems where downstream work should stay open.

Keep an eye on

A user cannot quietly take an adaptation private if the ShareAlike condition applies; check compatibility before combining licences.

People may share and adapt the work with attribution, but the permission excludes uses primarily intended for commercial advantage or monetary compensation.

A good fit for

Sharing and learning uses when you want to reserve commercial licensing for yourself.

Keep an eye on

NonCommercial is fact-sensitive. Advertising, monetisation, sponsorship, and a user’s wider business context may all matter.

People may share the original work, including commercially, with attribution, but may not distribute an adapted version under that permission.

A good fit for

Wide circulation of an unchanged master while protecting against distributed edits or remixes.

Keep an eye on

Cropping, remixing, translating, synchronising, or other changes can raise an adaptation question; review the actual use rather than the file label.

People may share and adapt the work with attribution for non-commercial purposes, and distributed adaptations must generally remain under the same or a compatible licence.

A good fit for

Open, non-commercial remix communities where both the commercial boundary and openness should travel downstream.

Keep an eye on

An adaptation can satisfy attribution and still cross the NC boundary; check both conditions independently.

The most restrictive standard CC licence: people may share the unchanged work with attribution, but not for commercial purposes or as a distributed adaptation.

A good fit for

Letting listeners pass along an original track while reserving commercial and adaptation decisions.

Keep an eye on

A video sync, edit, paid channel, or campaign may involve both a derivative-use question and a commercial-use question.

CC0 is a dedication to the public domain as far as the law allows, with no standard attribution, commercial-use, or share-alike condition imposed by CC0 itself.

A good fit for

A deliberate decision to make reuse as frictionless as possible and give up control where legally possible.

Keep an eye on

CC0 does not erase rights held by other contributors or guarantee that every jurisdiction treats every right identically; keep ownership records.