Having recently embarked on the path leading to Creative Commons certification, I’ve decided to share my logbook with you, as and when I complete the training units. This third article takes us into the depths of the 6 CC licenses and 2 public domain tools. Don’t hesitate to let me know what you think: as always, I’ll be delighted to share more widely what I’ve learned & my resources on the subject.

— 🔓 Fine-tuning copyright

“CC licenses are copyright licenses”. If copyright corresponds to the adage “all rights reserved”, Creative Commons licenses work with “some rights reserved “, where copyright applies, not in its place but as a complement, for the entire (underlying) duration of copyright.

Licensors retain their copyright: Creative Commons allows them to grant certain permissions (authorize copying, distribution & modification) on their original works, while defining their conditions of use in a way that is normative for international law.

“CC licenses only grant permissions under copyright law that licensors have the right to grant.”

The CC license is automatically terminated if the conditions chosen by the author are not respected (which amounts to redefining protections according to the “all rights reserved” copyright standard). Anything not covered by copyright (the right to read this article, for example ^^) is not covered by CC licenses. Similarly, if the work is already available in the public domain, CC licenses don’t apply, because you already have all possible rights without restriction or control.

Exceptions & limitations

By design, CC licenses do not reduce, limit or restrict the rights deriving from exceptions and limitations to copyright”. In cases where you are already authorized to exploit a work by virtue of applicable exception or limitation (such as the educational exception, or in favor of libraries/museums/archives, press reviews…), you do not need to respect (either, beyond your exception to copyright) the CC license. This is the case in the USA, where CC licenses do not affect exceptions and limitations to copyright such as fair dealing and fair use. The same applies to related rights linked to database content.

Furthermore, CC licenses only affect copyright, not other rights, which must be managed separately. This protection does not apply, for example, to industrial property rights such as patents or trademarks.

⚠ In addition, Creative commons urges its contributors not to use CC licenses for softwares. The ecosystem of software free and open source licences ↗ (the Free Software Foundation counts more than a hundred) is historically rooted, highly specific and already widely developed.

Nesting dolls

If you write an analysis article that includes illustrative photographs and place it under a CC license, some elements may not be covered by these permissions. Photographs that are not your property, or for which the rights have not been assigned (CC licenses), or that are not in the public domain, are also subject to copyright. The global article license does not take into account the specific license of these photographs (which must be respected and specified). This “nesting doll” principle can quickly become quite dense. It is essential to make these nuances explicit by mentioning the global open license “unless otherwise stated” and by specifying the licenses of any materials used (for example, in the photo captions).

Setting up CC licenses

💡 To summarize : 4 combined elements make it possible to structure 6 distinct Creative Commons licenses accessible according to 3 complementary layers. In addition, 2 tools enable works to be released into the public domain.

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📚 Considerations for licensors and licensees ↗ , Creative Commons Wiki

— 🎍 A 3-layered license

CC licenses are like onions: they contain several successive layers, which coexist inseparably and make up the whole. Those 3 layers are as follows:

1. legal code layer

This is the text of the law, expressed in the learned language of lawyers & jurists. This text describes in various articles the scope of the license, what constitutes it, its duration, its conditions of use, all the rights & duties…

Example: the legal code of the 'CC BY-SA' license ↗

2. human readable deed

These are summaries expressed in a vernacular language, a kind of user interface to the legal code. These notices make it easier to understand the ins and outs of each license, and follow a similar pattern from one license to the next. Each summary notice allows you to navigate to the web page describing the complete legal code of the license, and vice versa.

Example: the 'CC BY-SA' license notice ↗

3. machine readable metadata

This is the underlying computer coding, the method for standardizing the metadata used to qualify web content. It is particularly useful for building an application, for letting search engines know that content is CC-licensed, for scripts… This layer is written in HTML code according to rights expression attributes Creative Commons Rights Expression Language (ccREL) ↗

Example of ccREL structure (see ‘rel’ attribute and ‘xmlns’ pseudo-attributes) :

<a rel="license" href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/">
  <img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by/3.0/88x31.webp" />
</a>
<span xmlns:dct="http://purl.org/dc/terms/"property="dct:title">
  Lawrence Lessig at the CC Global Summit 2015
</span>
<a xmlns:cc="https://creativecommons.org/ns#" href="https://vimeo.com/143427866" property="cc:attributionName" rel="cc:attributionURL">
  Creative Commons
</a>

I’ve personally added those tags to the skeleton of this blog (as well as to the RSS feeds): don’t hesitate to send me your feedback for improvement ^^.

—

📚 Interactive animation to understand the 3 layers of CC licenses ↗ , Creative Commons Labs, 2011 | Hal Abelson, Ben Adida, Mike Linksvayer, Nathan Yergler, ccREL: The Creative Commons Rights Expression Language ↗ [PDF], 2008

— 🧩 4 elements to unite them all

Principles

Creative Commons provides a number of free tools and licensing options to enable creators to transfer certain rights internationally. 4 elements are available: BY, NC, ND, SA. So you can structure your CC license by combining these 4 elements according to the permissions you wish to grant.

Here are the 4 elements in detail:

ATTRIBUTION

This symbol (corresponding to the indication “BY”) refers to the authorship of the work, its attribution. All licenses include this condition because, as we saw in the chapter on copyright, it comes under the moral right inalienable, imprescriptible and perpetual. You must therefore credit the work.

NON COMMERCIAL

This symbol (corresponding to the indication “NC”) defines a non-commercial use of the work, whether in its own right or through the other authorizations potentially granted. You are therefore not authorized to make any use of this work, or of any of its component parts, that is “primarily intended for commercial advantage or monetary compensation”.

NO DERIVATIVES

This symbol (corresponding to the indication “ND”) indicates that the modification of the original work, the creation of derivative works or adaptations is strictly forbidden. In other words, if you remix, transform, or create from the material comprising the original work, you are not authorized to distribute or make available the modified work.

SHARE ALIKE

This symbol (corresponding to the indication “SA”) displays the copyleft lock integrated into the original work and all its possible adaptations. In other words, if you remix, transform, or create from material in the original work, you must distribute the modified work under the same license (or other compatible license) under which the original work was distributed. Historically, the copyleft ↗ [source: GNU / Free Software Foundation] comes from the GNU GPL license created by Richard Stallman in February 1989.

A good practical way to proceed

Follow this simplified attribution tree that I personally use to choose the CC license that suits me best:

1. first choose whether you wish to allow commercial re-use (“NC” if you don’t)
2. then if you wish to allow derivative works or adaptations (“ND” if you don’t). Nota Bene: the following are not considered adaptations: changes in technical formats, spelling or punctuation corrections, collection of works, addition of illustrative images to an original text…
3. finally, you have the option of compelling the re-user to use the same license as that granted to the original work (“SA” if you wish to compel).

—

📚 Test the CC license chooser ↗ , Creative Commons

— 🔬 The 6 licenses under the microscope

Les licences CC | Ministère français de la Culture & de la Communication x Creative Commons France, illustration : Atelier FP7, 2014 CC BY-SA 4.0 FR

The various options thus combined make up one of the 6 licenses offered by Creative Commons.

• The first 2 are considered “free”, insofar as they authorize all the 4 essential freedoms of Free Cultural Works ↗ : the freedom to use + the freedom to study + the freedom to make and distribute copies + the freedom to make changes and improvements & distribute derivate works
• The next 4 are considered “open but restrictive” in that they define a progressively higher level of control (from 3 = least restrictive, to 6 = most restrictive).

These licenses are versioned over time: since November 2013 we are at version 4.0 ↗ [source: wiki CC] which aims to make them “more international, easier to use and more sustainable”.

« These licenses are interoperable and non-exclusive, avoid transaction costs, facilitate digital use, complement copyright and are compatible with the French legal system. They create a balance between the rights of creators and users. » Ministère français de la Culture & de la Communication x Creative Commons France, 2014

The 6 licenses are as follows (from the most free and open to the most restrictive):

[CC0]

• CC BY = Attribution
• CC BY-SA = Attribution with Share Alike
• CC BY-NC = Attribution without commercial use
• CC BY-NC-SA = Attribution without commercial use but Share Alike
• CC BY-ND = Attribution without modification
• BY-NC-ND = Attribution without commercial use nor modification

We realize that the prohibition of modification (ND) deals a particularly strong blow to the degree of openness of these licenses, but what matters above all here is the possibility of combining elements to seal a legal force.

—

📚 ↗ , Wikimedia Commons, Shaddim, 2016 | The 4 essentials freedom of Free and Open Source Softwares ↗ , GNU x Free Software Foundation | Understanding Free Cultural Works ↗ , Creative Commons

Table of rights & duties

Find here, for each license, the permissions (“rights”) granted as well as the duties on the original work & its possible adaptations.

📲 For mobile reading, prefer the synthetic table

—

📚 Six licenses to share your work ↗ [PDF], Creative Commons Wiki

Table of legal & graphic materials

Find here, for each license, its synthetic notice (to link it to the works you share), its complete legal code (for reference) as well as the corresponding graphic icons (to communicate).

📲 For mobile reading, prefer the synthetic table

— 💧 Focus on the 2 public domain tools

PUBLIC DOMAIN MARK

This symbol (or the mention “PDM”) is used to label a work “already free of known copyright restrictions”, worldwide. It does not change the copyright status of a work, insofar as it has no or no longer any copyright restrictions. It is, however, the essential reference for mentioning a work in the public domain that you wish to re-use.

CC0 (“CC ZERO”)

This symbol indicates that the creator dedicates his or her work to the public domain. To do this, he or she must first hold the copyright to this work, as author or beneficiaries. Thus, he or she explicitly waives his or her rights to this work for the whole world & unconditionally, “according to the laws on copyright, neighboring & related rights”. When the CC0 tool is applied to a work, “copyright and related rights are waived worldwide, making the work free of these restrictions”.

Table of rights & duties

For the record: with those 2 tools, the user is not bound to any particular duty or constraint, since all permissions are granted. Even if it’s elementary courtesy for you to mention the author of the work you’re using thanks to him or her!

📲 For mobile reading, prefer the synthetic table

—

📚 Guide to use public domain tools ↗ [PDF], Creative Commons Wiki

Table of legal & graphic materials

📲 For mobile reading, prefer the synthetic table

— 📋 Overview table

[ → Documents en version française ]

For greater readability, I’ve summarized the above tables in a single Ledger sheet (A3 European paper format). The source files are available in Open Document format (readable with Open Office or Libre Office, for example) under Public Domain (CC0) ↗ . The files are clickable: they incorporate hypertext links and you can access the resources directly by clicking on them.

📥 You can download & use for free :

• B&W version → PDF ↗ [71.4ko]
• B&W version → source file ODP ↗ [118.1ko]
• color version → PDF ↗ [83.2ko]
• color version → source file ODP ↗ [121.2ko]

— 💬 Assign a CC license

To contribute to the circulation of knowledge and the opening up of knowledge (Open GLAM, Open Access, Open Content…), I strongly encourage you to share your work and assign it the CC license of your choice, as freely as possible. This can be done without any particular legal knowledge.

On Flickr ↗ , for example, this is what enables us to distribute +100,000 new CC-licensed images every day!

Here’s how to do it:

1/ To assign a CC license to a work, you must first :

• own the copyright to the work (you can’t assign a CC license to a work for which you don’t own the intellectual property, which belongs to someone else)
• refer to the complete legal code of the chosen license (the simplified notice remains an informative & synthetic tool)
• accept that the CC license will be irrevocable

2/ Combine the options you wish to assign: the CC license chooser ↗ can help you make your choice

3/ Mention the license explicitly (icons, badge or text format) and create a hypertext link to its summary notice.

⚠ By convention, to mention a CC license in writing, use the following nomenclature: CC (for Creative Commons) followed by a string of hyphenated options. Since CC is not an option, it is not hyphenated.

Example: CC BY, CC BY-SA, CC BY-NC-ND

—

📚 Considerations for licensors and licensees ↗ , Creative Commons

… to be continued …

␥ Find out more

• All my articles about Creative Commons / CC-Cert Logbook
• CC Materials to download ↗ (icons, logos, branding guidelines…)
• Share your work ↗ , source: Creative Commons
• List of court decisions & case law concerning CC licenses ↗ , CC Legal Database
• Tai-Jan Huang, CC Copyright Consciousness ↗ : copyright consciousness and intellectual property / The politics of Creative Commons, Stanford University Thesis, 2013

Article under CC BY-SA 4.0 license

Creative Commons Licenses Mapping — CC-Cert Logbook 3/.

This article is published under CC BY-SA 4.0 Attribution-ShareAlike license

→ You are free to :

Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format for any purpose, even commercially

Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.

→ Under the following terms :

Attribution — You must give appropriate credit with the title and the author's name of this article, provide a link to this article as well as a link to the license CC BY-SA 4.0, and indicate if changes were made

ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license CC BY-SA 4.0 .

• Read License Details

To credit this article :

« Creative Commons Licenses Mapping — CC-Cert Logbook 3/., Guillaume Rouan, CC BY-SA 4.0 »
🔗 https://grouan.fr/en/2023/10/23/creative-commons-certification-unit3-cartographie-des-licences-cc/
🔗 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.fr

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