## Creative Commons licences

Most Open Content has a Creative Commons (CC) licence. These licences aim to facilitate the sharing, copying and editing of a resource. By using a CC licence, copyright can be handled with more flexibility. The material’s creator of can choose from 6 different Creative Commons licences. With these, the creator determines the conditions under which the material may be used and distributed.

Creative Commons licences consist of four building blocks. If you know these building blocks, the meaning of a Creative Commons licence is easy to figure out. The building blocks stand for four different terms of use:

Building block | Explanation
Attribution: BY | You are allowed to copy, share, display, perform, and create materials based on the material, but only with credit to the creator.
Non-commercial: NC | It is permitted to copy, share, display, perform, and create materials based on the material, as long as it is not used for commercial purposes. The material may not be used in commercial education.
Derived Works: ND | It is allowed to copy, share, display and perform the material, while keeping it in its original state. Thus, it is not allowed to use the material as a basis for new materials.
Equal Sharing: SA | You are allowed to copy, share, display, perform, and create materials based on the material. The derivative material must be published under the same licence.

The above building blocks combine to form six Creative Commons licences. Below is a list of the licences in order from least to most restrictive:

Symbol | Explanation
| Attribution
| Attribution-ShareAlike
| Attribution-NonCommercial
| Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
| Attribution-NoDerivativeWorks
| Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives

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NB You will see the 'BY' section in each licence, which indicates that attribution is a mandatory part of each Creative Commons licence. In addition to the six licences, there are two other Creative Commons labels:

Symbol | Explanation
| Public domain dedication (CC0) > The creator has relinquished the copyright.
| Public Domain Mark (PDM) > There is no copyright on the work, or the copyright has expired.

NB CC0 and PDM indicate that the material is not (no longer) copyright protected. Anyone may therefore reuse, modify and share the material without restrictions.