The Creative Commons license was created to facilitate the allowance for legal use of copyright protected works by their creators.

Creative Commons licenses contain legal code, "human-readable" plain English explanations, and are also machine readable. By reading the License Deed, the reader knows what they can do with a work, and what terms they must follow. 

Licenses

The main licenses are:

   Attribution CC BY

You may copy and redistribute the material
You may remix, adapt, and build upon the material for any purpose even commercially
You must give credit to the creator, link to the license, and indicate if changes were made in a reasonable manner

   Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA

You may copy and redistribute the material 
You may remix, adapt, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially
You must give credit to the creator, link to the license, and indicate if changes were made in a reasonable manner
If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must release your contributions under the same license as the original

   Attribution-NoDerivs CC BY-ND

You may copy and redistribute the material for any purpose, even commercially
You must give credit to the creator and link to the license
If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material

   Attribution-NonCommercial  CC BY-NC

You may copy and redistribute the material
You may remix, transform, or build upon the material
You must give credit to the creator and link to the license, and indicate if changes were made in a reasonable manner
You may not use the material for commercial purposes

   Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA

You may copy and redistribute the material
You may remix, transform, or build upon the material
You must give credit to the creator and link to the license, and indicate if changes were made in a reasonable manner
You may not use the material for commercial purposes
If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must release your contributions under the same license as the original

   Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs CC BY-NC-ND

You may copy and redistribute the material
You must give credit to the creator and link to the license
You may not use the material for commercial purposes
If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material

For a full explanation of Creative Commons licenses, visit creativecommons.org

Are you using a Creative Commons video, image, or document and need to properly cite it? While the rules may be slightly different depending on the citation style you're using, you'll need at least these basic components.

“Creative Commons Licensing” by Mandi Goodsett, licensed under a CC-BY-SA 4.0 license.

Here's the same citation with the links written out.

“Creative Commons Licensing” (https://tinyurl.com/ybky9tkp) by Mandi Goodsett licensed under a CC-BY-SA 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). 

You can also always ask your Personal Librarian for help if you have questions!

Feel free to ask your Personal Librarian, or you can reach out to Mandi Goodsett, CSU's librarian with a specialization in copyright.