Critical Information Literacy: Creative Commons

"Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that enables the sharing and use of creativity and knowledge through free legal tools. Our free, easy-to-use copyright licenses provide a simple, standardized way to give the public permission to share and use your creative work — on conditions of your choice". https://creativecommons.org/about/

Creative Commons website

License Terms

Creators or copyright holders who wish to apply a Creative Commons license to their work can choose to allow their work to be copied and reused with any one or more restrictions, or certain combinations of restrictions. The four restrictions are:

Condition	Image	Description
Attribution		You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.[1].
Non Commercial		If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material.[2]
Share Alike		If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.[3]
No Derivatives		If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material.[4]

http://copyright.ubc.ca/guidelines-and-resources/support-guides/creative-commons/ 

What is a license?

In the copyright context, a license is another term for an agreement whereby the copyright owner grants someone else permission to use their work.

If I put a CC license on my work, am I giving away my copyright?

No. You retain your ownership of the copyright in your work. By granting any of the Creative Commons licenses, you're give others permission to use your work on certain conditions.

What can be licensed, and is there any cost involved?

CC licenses can be applied to any work that is protected by copyright, including all original literary, artistic, dramatic and musical works, computer programs, translations and compilations of works, as well as sound recordings, performances and communication signals. such as, books, articles, posters, manuals and graphs, to CDs, DVDs, software, databases and websites. CC FAQs on data.

Which is the best Creative Commons license?

Choosing which Creative Commons license to use depends upon how the copyright owner of the work would like it to be reused, repurposed, or remixed. As a copyright owner, some of the questions you may wish to think about when choosing a Creative Commons License are:

• Am I ok with other people copying and distributing my content without permission?
• Am I ok with them changing and adapting the content? Will I allow remixing?
• Do I want to limit how others can release their remixes?
• Am I ok with other people making money out of their reuse of the work?