Public Domain
Public domain are resources that are no longer (or were never) covered by copyright law. Public domain resources are free to use and distribute without restriction. Public domain materials belong to the public. For more information, see the short video on public domain to the left of this box.
Individually-created materials are often not in the public domain unless they have aged out of copyright coverage or have been dedicated to the public domain by their creator. Government publications are examples of publications that are created in the public domain and remain there in perpetuity.
Creative Commons
Creative Commons licensing is the most common form of open publishing for non-government works that are created by individuals or institutions. Creative Commons licenses present several options for attribution and use.
The images and text in this chart are derived directly from https://creativecommons.org/licenses/. Creative Commons has licensed this material under a CC-Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). It is "remixed" here into a format that fits this guide.
| License Name |
License Label |
License Restrictions |
| Attribution |
|
This license lets others distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered. Recommended for maximum dissemination and use of licensed materials. |
| Attribution-ShareAlike |
Attribution-ShareAlike
CC BY-SA
|
This license lets others remix, adapt, and build upon your work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. This license is often compared to “copyleft” free and open source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use. This is the license used by Wikipedia, and is recommended for materials that would benefit from incorporating content from Wikipedia and similarly licensed projects. |
| Attribution-NoDerivs |
Attribution-NoDerivs
CC BY-ND
|
This license lets others reuse the work for any purpose, including commercially; however, it cannot be shared with others in adapted form, and credit must be provided to you. |
| Attribution-NonCommercial |
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
CC BY-NC-SA
|
This license lets others remix, adapt, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. |
| Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs |
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs
CC BY-NC-ND
|
This license is the most restrictive of our six main licenses, only allowing others to download your works and share them with others as long as they credit you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially. |
Other Types of Open Licensing
Different types of open licensing may apply to different types of content. Below are some examples of other terms that may be familiar:
Open Source licensing is often applied to software.
Open Access is a term often used in open academic publishing. Some open access publishing is licensed under Creative Commons licensing, but they are not necessarily the same thing. Some open access or hybrid access journals (which contain both open access and copyrighted materials) have "levels" of open access publishing options that protect author rights in a manner similar to Creative Commons licensing.
Open access materials are sometimes associated with predatory publishers. While some predatory publishers use open access publishing, not all open access publishers are predatory. Most open access initiatives seek to expand the reach of scholarship and increase information equity. These ideals do not align with predatory publishers seeking to take advantage of someone's intellectual property.
Open Data licensing applies specifically to data (though Creative Commons licensing may also be applied to data) and implies the ability to reuse, remix, and redistribute the data.