What is Creative Commons licensing?

The Creative Commons license was developed as an alternative to the traditional "All Rights Reserved" copyright and allows content authors to share their resources while protecting their rights. This type of license is ideal for the sharing all kinds of educational resources such as images, audio, video, animations, and presentations. There are six types of licenses offered through the Creative Commons licensing model, each of which has different permissions and restrictions depending on your content.

Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives
Using this license, others can download and redistribute your work in a non-commercial way provided that they credit you as the author. This type of license is ideal for packaged content that you’d like to share but maintain ownership of. Using this license is often considered to be “free advertising” since others must link or reference back to you in order to use your material.

Attribution Non-commercial Share Alike
This license allows others to download, change, and redistribute your work for non-commercial purposes provided that they credit you as the original author and redistribute their work under the same license. This license is ideal for content that can be easily remixed, such as audio or video, where portions of the clip might only be used. It allows others to reuse your work in a way suitable to their specific needs, while crediting you as the original author and further promoting the licensing model.

Attribution Non-commercial
Using this license, others can download, change, and redistribute your work in a non-commercial way. The must credit you as the author but they are not bound to redistribute under the same license terms. This license is ideal for sharing content that can be easily remixed, such as audio and video, where you still receive credit for you work but you are not binding them to the same redistribution license.

Attribution No Derivates
This license allows others to redistribute your work for both commercial and non-commercial purposes provided that they do not change it and they credit you as the author. This license is ideal for standalone content, such as an image or an animation, which does not lend itself to modification.

Attribution Share-Alike
Using this license, others can download, change, and redistribute your work for both commercial and non-commercial purposes provided they credit you as the original author and license their new content under the same license. This license is suitable for all types of content and is best used if you want to ensure that newly created content is licensed under the same model.

Attribution
This license allows others to download, change, and redistribute your work for both commercial and non-commercial purposes provided that they credit you as the original author. This license is suitable for all types of content and is the least restrictive of the licenses allowing for maximum redistribution.