Open Educational Resources (OER) at MUSC

Creative Commons licenses are standardized tools that provide a range of options for creators who are interested in sharing their works with the public rather than reserving all rights under copyright.

The four license elements — Attribution (BY), ShareAlike (SA), NonCommercial (NC), and NoDerivatives (ND) — combine to make up six different license options. 

All of the licenses include the BY condition. In other words, all of the licenses require that the creator be attributed in connection with their work. Beyond that commonality, the licenses vary whether (1) commercial use of the work is permitted; and (2) whether the work can be adapted, and if so, on what terms.

The 6 licenses from least to most restrictive:

The Attribution license or “CC BY” Links to an external site.allows people to use the work for any purpose (even commercially and even in modified form) as long as they give attribution to the creator.

The Attribution-ShareAlike license or “BY-SA”Links to an external site. allows people to use the work for any purpose (even commercially and even in modified form), as long as they give attribution to the creator and make any adaptations they share with others available under the same or a compatible license.

The Attribution-NonCommercial license or “BY-NC” Links to an external site.allows people to use the work for noncommercial purposes only, and only as long as they give attribution to the creator.

The Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license or “BY-NC-SA”Links to an external site. allows people to use the work for noncommercial purposes only, and only as long as they give attribution to the creator and make any adaptations they share with others available under the same or a compatible license.

The Attribution-NoDerivatives license or “BY-ND”Links to an external site. allows people to use the unadapted work for any purpose (even commercially), as long as they give attribution to the creator.

The Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license or “BY-NC-ND”Links to an external site. is the most restrictive license offered by Creative Commons. It allows people to use the unadapted work for noncommercial purposes only, and only as long as they give attribution to the licensor.

In addition to the CC licenses, Creative Commons also has an option for creators who want to take a “no rights reserved” approach and disclaim copyright entirely. This is CC0, the public domain dedication tool.

Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.