Creative Commons Licenses: Using CC Licenses and CC-Licensed Works

What is the difference?

A collection is a group of things. Think of a charcuterie board.

Charcuterie Board. Mon Petite Chou Photography. Flickr. CC BY 2.0

A remix, also called an adaptation or a derivative, mixes works together - they can no longer be identified as the original work. Think of a cake.

Homemade vanilla biscuit with ingredients for cooking. Marco Verch Professional Photographer. Flickr. CC BY 2.0

This page explores how to apply a license to these two types of works.

A collection compiles different works together while keeping them organized as distinct objects.

As an example, I created a calendar using Microsoft Powerpoint featuring sci-fi cover art collected from Flickr. These images are either CC BY, CC BY-SA, or CC BY-NC.

When applying a license to a work you create there are some considerations to work through:

• The licenses and CC0 are irrevocable. They are a legal agreement that cannot be canceled. That means once you apply a CC license to a work, the CC license applies to the work until the copyright on the work expires. 

• Make sure your work is appropriate for CC licensing. Software and hardware are not.

• If you wish to sell your work, make sure there is no NonCommercial (NC) licensed works included in the collection. If there is, you cannot sell your collection.

• You must retain all the original licenses of the individual items used to create the new work.

• You must provide attribution and licensing information about the individual works in your collection. This gives the public the information they need to understand who created what and which license terms apply to specific content. 

• When you combine material into a collection, you may have a separate copyright of your own that you may license. However, your copyright only extends to the new contributions you made to the work. In a collection, that is the selection and arrangement of the various works in the collection, and not the individual works themselves. This license does not apply to the original works themselves.

• you can change the license of a work, but you cannot retroactively apply the new license to works that have the old license. And going forward those works with the old license can still be used by creators according to the old license permitted uses.

What is the difference between a remix and adapted / derived works?

• Remix mixes materials from different sources to create something completely new 

• Adapted / derived works are new works created from a copyrighted work that is sufficiently original to itself be protected by copyright. The resulting work itself must be considered based on or derived from the original. Examples include taking excerpts of a larger work, using a work in a different format, or modifying a work.

• You must apply the most restrictive license of the individual items you are using in the new work. 

The most important thing to consider when reusing CC licensed works is to provide attribution to the creator of the work. The one requirement for use of all CC licenses is to provide attribution. The best practice for attribution is to apply the TASL approach.

• T = Title
• A = Author
• S = Source
• L = License

See the Creative Commons Best Practices for Attribution web page for more detailed information.

If your use of a CC licensed work creates an adaptation, then:

1. If the underlying work is licensed under a NoDerivatives license, you can make and use changes privately but you cannot share your adaptation with others.
2. If the underlying work is licensed under a ShareAlike license, then ShareAlike applies to your adaptation and you must license it under the same or a compatible license.
3. You need to consider license compatibility. License compatibility is the term used to address the issue of which types of licensed works can be adapted into a new work.
4. In all cases, you have to attribute the original work when you create an adaptation.

CC License Compatibility Chart / CC BY 4.0

Use this chart to determine which license you can use for your adaptation / remix / derivative.

To use the chart, find a license that applies to one of the works on the left column and the license that applies to the other work on the top right row.

If there is a checkmark than the work can be remixed.

If there is an 'X', then the works cannot be remixed.

Now that you know which works can be mixed together, you need to apply your own license to the work you created. This chart will help you decide which license to apply to your adaptation, depending on the licenses of the works you have used to create the adaptation.

Adapter's license chart. CC BY 4.0

The lefthand column is the license of the material you are including in your work. The top column is the license that you can use on your work.

If the box is green you can use that license for your adapted work.

If the box is yellow, it is not recommend to use that license, although doing so is technically permitted by the terms of the license. If you do, you should take additional care to mark the adaptation as involving multiple copyrights under different terms so that downstream users are aware of their obligations to comply with the licenses from all rights holders.

If the box is dark gray, you may not use that license as your adapter’s license.

Creative Commons Licenses Libguide by Nora Hehemann is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

"Using CC Licenses and CC-Licensed Works" https://certificates.creativecommons.org/cccertedu/chapter/4-4-remixing-cc-licensed-work/ by Creative Commons. CC BY 4.0.