Creative Commons licences

There are four licence modules:

• BY = Attribution; Attribution (users must provide appropriate copyright and rights information)
• SA = Share-alike; redistribution under the same conditions (the work must be redistributed under the same licence after modification)
• NC = Non-commercial (The work may not be used for commercial purposes.)
• ND = No derivatives; No adaptations (The work may not be modified.)

These modules can be combined into six possible licence types according to the modular principle:

• CC BY,
• CC BY-SA,
• CC BY-NC-SA,
• CC BY-ND,
• CC BY-NC-ND,
• CC BY-NC.

There is also CC0 (external link, opens in a new window) (similar to Public Domain), which allows unrestricted use.

Internationally, the licences are currently available in version 4.0. Up to version 3.0, they were adapted to the legal systems of various countries.

CC licences facilitate the distribution and use of works in the digital world.

• Copyright law only authorises the use of a work within narrow limits. For example, the reproduction (but not the distribution) of 75 per cent of a work is permitted for own scientific research. Only up to 15 per cent of a work may be used for teaching and instruction at educational institutions (see also copyright law). If an author wants his or her work to be copied, downloaded, shared or publicly reproduced in full and thus distributed more easily, he or she can quickly and easily grant these rights to all users with the help of CC licences.
• When content is CC-licensed, there are fewer legal uncertainties. Researchers can reuse results more productively and build on them - an important foundation for academic work and innovation. Research becomes more efficient overall.
• CC licences are therefore an important part of making works available in open access. They indicate to users that works may be reused and in what way. Without licences, ambiguities as to whether data, texts or graphics may be reused make academic work more difficult.
• As early as 2003, the German scientific organisations demanded in the Berlin Declaration that authors should "irrevocably grant all users the free, worldwide right of access to these publications" and further allow them to "copy, use, distribute, transmit and publicly reproduce these publications - in any digital medium and for any responsible purpose - as well as to create and distribute adaptations of them, provided that authorship is correctly acknowledged".
• Works that are freely available are used more often by users than works that are not freely available. Search engines therefore tend to list them higher up, making them even more visible. As a result, they are also more widely used and cited more often. The author's level of recognition increases and with it the demand for his or her other works. More advertising revenue, higher recognition and higher payment can be further positive consequences.
• If someone wants to use a work without a CC licence on their website or similar, they would have to ask the author for permission. The same applies if someone wants to use the work as the basis for a work based on it or wants to translate the texts. As asking the author directly is too time-consuming for many people, the work is often not used at all or is used without permission, neither of which is usually what the author wants. With a CC licence, on the other hand, these uses are clearly regulated from the outset: CC-BY licences, for example, allow content to be placed on websites or translated and redistributed. ND modules prohibit changes to the original.
• Symbols/abbreviations make the CC standard licence agreements quick and easy to understand for everyone worldwide. Simple rules that are understood by users are also more likely to be adhered to. A detailed explanation of the rights of use can be found in the linked - legally formulated - licence agreements. A machine-readable version allows search engines to recognise the licence.
• For authors, it is possible to create a licence with just a few clicks and thus conclude a legally binding agreement with anyone interested in using the work without having to contact them directly. The use of CC licences is free of charge.
• CC licences are already very well known. Thanks to them, millions of copyright-protected works are already freely available today. Specific platforms and search engines can be used to search for works under free licences.

Under the conditions specified by the licence type, users are granted a non-exclusive, perpetual right of use to

• copy the work in any form and quantity and integrate it into collections,
• redistribute the work,
• show the work in public
• and possibly - depending on the CC licence - adapt, remix, transform, and build upon the original work (when clearly stating that it is a derivative).

For reusing CC licensed content, users have to

• make a proper attribution to the author (it is recommended to cite the title of the work as well),
• link the source,
• state the license,
• link to the license agreement (URI)
• and state if any changes are made.

Als a guide for appropriate attribution may serve the TASL formula: Title, Author, Source, Licence + further copyright and editing information. The form of this information is not specified and depends on the medium.

An ideal copyright notice would be, for example: Work title (linked to the source) by Peter Meier / CC BY (linked to the licence certificate)
In the case of modifications, for example, the following would be added: This work XY is a derivative of ...

Using non-commercial modules is extremely controversial, as they often result in unintended yet serious disadvantages. For example, they sometimes exclude general practitioners, freelance members of the teaching staff, private educational institutions, non-commercial and non-profit organisations and databases from use. At the same time, however, many publishing contracts (e.g. also at Springer, Wiley, Elsevier, at least in 2024) stipulate that if NC/ND licences are chosen, all rights of use for adaptations or commercial use are transferred exclusively to the publisher! This offers publishers a new opportunity to make money from their work without the authors themselves benefiting from it. Authors themselves must also obtain authorisation from the publisher if they wish to use their own works for commercial purposes.
The NC module also does not protect against use by AI, because by transferring the rights to the publishers, they (only) have the option of exclusively reselling your data. If the works are freely available anyway, this option is not as profitable.
As an alternative to CC-BY-NC, CC BY-SA is recommended, as modifications of the work may then also be sold, but they must also remain available under this free licence. Further information on this can be found in the irights source and the UNESCO source (page 48-54).
Academic institutions therefore recommend CC-BY for the best possible redistribution and reuse.

Using non-derivative modules also limits the influence of the work, as users can no longer build on it and cannot create modified versions. This includes translations, new arrangements and film adaptations.

With the CC0 licence type, the data provider waives the copyrights (as far as this is possible under German copyright law) or grants full rights of use. As copyright information is essential for scientific texts, CC0 is not commonly used here. For quantitative research data, on the other hand, the allocation of CC0 is recommended so that the data can also be easily reused in other research projects. For pure data that is not protected by copyright, labelling with CC0is also usefulfor clarification purposes.