Creative Commons

What is Creative Commons?

Creative Commons (CC) is an international organization with the goal of simplifying the legal use and distribution of creative material on the Internet. By using so-called Creative Commons licenses the author of a work can mark his web-based material in advance and clearly describe what others can do with his work. For instance, if you find an image online with a Creative Commons license that allows you to use and distribute the material (with specific conditions) it’s basically the same as getting permission to use an item without the need to actually contact the copyright holder.

Finding and using CC materials

You can find Creative Commons materials through a number of search engines, for example see Creative Commons Search. Creative Commons licensed images can also be located via image-sharing site Flickr. The film below explains how (starting at ca. 7:00 minutes).

For tips on how to best reference Creative Commons material that you want to use visit the Creative Commons website.

Using CC licenses for your own material

When you create something, you can also apply a CC license to your work  - just make sure that you actually have the right to do so, for example, if the work in question has more than one author. Creative Commons’ website offers some good tips on things to think about before licensing your work!

Which license is right for your work? Swedish foundation .SE has a good guide to choosing, step-by-step, the right license conditions: Creative Commons – choose the right license (only in Swedish)!

The textual content of SLU Library’s Search- and writer´s guide is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license