Creative commons license can be defined as a copyright license that allows an author or the owner of copyrighted works to own the right of their works while allowing members of the public to copy and redistribute their work in any form once credit is given.
The creative commons license has different types of variations and limits linked to each. Find below is an explanation of the license types:
- Attribution (by); the general public can make copies to be distributed, displayed, acted on or make similar works mirroring the authors copyright work without making any payments all that is needed and enforced by this license is that the licensees must give recognition to the copyrighted work in the manner specified by the license.
- Noncommercial (nc); in this case, licensees are given the privilege to write, display, perform and make mirroring works in relation to the licensed work but these remakes and usage of the original work must not be used in any way for commercial reasons.
- No Derivative works (nd); as the name suggests, licensees can copy, display and perform works from the original article without paying the author of the licensed work but the copied or performed work must be done or repeated in verbatim no derived versions must be spun from the original.
- Share- alike; original works can be shared in different formats either as derived works or performed act as long as the derived work is copyrighted under a similar license like the one that governs the original.
- Sampling; this is usually used in the music industry the creative commons law of sampling states that part of an original work can be sampled for any purposes as far as advertising is excluded.
- DevNations; this is a special creative commons law designed to suit the needs of people from developing nations, it allows them to copy and produce license work for their own use in any format, examples are the use of original music to create similar sounds for artistic and monetary gain.
There are also different combinations of the above listed creative commons license types:
- Attribution+ NonDerivatives combination. (by-nd)
- Attribution + share- alike (by-sa)
- Attribution + non-commercial (by- nc)
- Attribution+ non-commercial + non derivative (by-nc-nd)
- Attribution + non-commercial share-alike (by-nc-sa)
Organisations solely built under the jurisdiction of all creative common licensing laws have been set up in different areas of the world such as Creative Commons (CC) that is located in California their main aim is to widen the reach of creative works, so that people from all over the world can download, use and re-create legally and also share to their friends. These organisations usually release copyright licenses of artists’ works free to for public viewing so other artist can learn and take a cue on the type of copyright licenses they set on their own respective works.