Creative Commons licences

Creative Commons licenses provide a simple, standardised way to grant copyright permissions for published items, and make clear to others how they can copy, distribute, and make use of those works. They are applied to open access outputs, and are also required to satisfy the open access requirements of funders and the REF. 

When you are choosing a Creative Commons licence, it is important to think carefully about how you want your resource to be used, as different licences provide different permissions. 

If you are publishing open access, the publisher will apply the licence and may offer you a choice. Remember, funders in particular may require the most liberal licence: CC BY. 

You can also apply Creative Commons licences to work that you publish yourself and where you hold the copyright, e.g., conference presentations. Use the licence chooser to select the licence you want to use or refer to the information on this page. 

Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY)

A CC BY, or Attribution licence, allows anyone to re-mix, re-use and re-share the work, as long as attribution is provided to the creator. This is the most liberal licence. 

Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike (CC BY-SA)

A CC BY-SA, or Share Alike licence, allows anyone to re-mix, re-use, and re-share, so long as attribution is provided to the creator, and any new work is re-shared freely under the same licence. This licence permits commercial use. 

Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike (CC BY-NC-SA)

The CC BY-NC-SA licence allows the work to be re-mixed, re-used, and re-shared so long as attribution is provided to the creator, the work is not used for commercial purposes, and any new work is re-shared freely under the same licence. 

Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial (CC BY-NC) 

The CC BY-NC, or Non-Commercial licence, allows the work to be re-used and remixed, and re-shared, as long as attribution is provided to the creator and the work is not used for commercial purposes. With this licence, for example, a translation could be made but not sold commercially. 

Remember, commercial use can be hard to define, e.g., posting an item on a website which gains some revenue from advertising may be in breach of this licence. Funders in particular do not recommend this licence as it also limits the use of research outputs in industry.  

Creative Commons Attribution No Derivatives (CC BY-ND)

A CC BY-ND, or Non-Derivative licence, allows anyone to re-use and re-share the work, as long as credit is provided to the creator, and no changes are made to the original work. This licence permits commercial use. With this licence, for example, a translation could not be made. 

Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No-Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND)

The CC BY-NC-ND license allows the work to be re-used and re-shared, so long as attribution is provided to the creator, the work is not used for commercial purposes, and no changes are made to the original work. This is the most restrictive licence. 

Creative Commons Zero (CC0) 

CC0 is a public dedication tool that means the rights holder has waived all copyright protection rights and placed the work in the public domain. This means the resource can be used for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial, without the need for attribution. This licence is not commonly applied to regular published works.