CC licenses contain three layers – the Legal Code, the Commons Deeds, and the Machine Readable layer.
When work is being used within limitations and exceptions to copyright, such as fair use, these uses supersede the CC license.
Canadian law protects all original creative works, as long as the conditions set out in the Copyright Act have been met.
Copyright is a bit complicated, but in broad strokes:
The Fair Dealing exceptions in Canada fall under 8 broad categories: private study; research; review; criticism; news reporting;, education; parody; and satire.
Trademarks and patents are distinct from copyright. You can find out more about these and other protections from the Canadian Intellectual Property Office.
Find out more in Copyright@BCIT and
UBC's guide Copyright at UBC: Basics FAQ and
Creative Commons Certificate for Educators and Librarians: Copyright Law
What is the purpose of Copyright?
What is copyrightable?
How does a person receive copyright over their work?
What does it mean to have copyright over a work?
Adapted from: “Unit 2: Copyright Law” by Creative Commons. CC BY 4.0.
Creative Commons (CC) is a non-profit organization which operates globally to oversee CC licenses and support the open movement.
Creative Commons licenses are designed to allow people to share their work in a variety of ways while maintaining copyright over what they created.
Over 2 billion works are now either CC licensed or are in the public domain.
Creative Commons licenses work within copyright law. By licensing your work with a CC license:
The four license elements
BY – Attribution - the work must be attributed by the user - all CC licenses include this element
SA - ShareAlike - any use of the work, including derivatives, must be licensed with the same license
NC – NonCommercial - the work cannot be used by a person or entity to make a profit
ND – NoDerivative - the work can be reused but any adaptations cannot be shared
Attribution
CC BY
This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered. Recommended for maximum dissemination and use of licensed materials.
View License Deed | View Legal Code
Attribution-ShareAlike
CC BY-SA
This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. This license is often compared to “copyleft” free and open source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use. This is the license used by Wikipedia, and is recommended for materials that would benefit from incorporating content from Wikipedia and similarly licensed projects.
View License Deed | View Legal Code
Attribution-NoDerivatives
CC BY-ND
This license allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to you.
View License Deed | View Legal Code
Attribution-NonCommercial
CC BY-NC
This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.
View License Deed | View Legal Code
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
CC BY-NC-SA
This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.
View License Deed | View Legal Code
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
CC BY-NC-ND
This license is the most restrictive of the six main licenses, only allowing others to download your works and share them with others as long as they credit you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.
View License Deed | View Legal Code
Creative Commons maintains a website where all their different licenses are explained.
Additional Resources
Works that are not under copyright are considered in the public domain. These works are free to use for any purpose - you do not need permission to copy or adapt the work. You do not even have to give the work attribution but is is good practice to do so.
In Canada, works usually enter the public domain 50 years after the creator dies.
If the work was created outside of Canada in a Bern Convention country, it is generally considered to be in the public domain if you are using it in Canada and it would fall under public domain in Canada.
CC has a CC0 public domain tool which allow creators to disclaim copyright over their work. This differs from the CC licenses as the creator takes a no rights reserved approach.
If you want to put your work in the public domain, you can give it a CC0, no rights reserved, mark. This should be used only with your own work.
The CC0 legal code also uses a three-pronged legal approach. Since some countries do not allow creators to waive their rights, CC0 includes a 'fall-back' license that allows anyone to do anything with the work and a promise that the creator will not assert their rights against anyone reusing their work.
The Public Domain mark, no known copyright, is given to works that are known to be in the public domain in all jurisdictions. This is usually applied to old works.
Find out more in UBC's guide Copyright at UBC: Public Domain
Adapted from: “Unit 3: Anatomy of a CC License” https://certificates.creativecommons.org/cccertedu/chapter/3-anatomy-of-a-cc-license/ by Creative Commons. CC BY 4.0.
Inspired by Creative Commons licenses, Traditional Knowledge (TK) licenses and labels are under development as "a tool for Indigenous communities to add existing local protocols for access and use to recorded cultural heritage that is digitally circulating outside community contexts".
Visit Local Contexts' website to learn more.