LibGuides: Creative Commons: Getting Creative Commons licences

Using Creative Commons licences on your own works

How do I get a Creative Commons licence?
What Creative Commons licence is right for this work?

There is no registration or sign-up for a Creative Commons licence. Any Creative Commons licence you want to apply to a work, you can, as long as you hold the copyright. All you need to do to licence a work under Creative Commons is choose a licence and then publicly list, display, or upload the work along with your chosen Creative Commons licence.

If you're not sure how to do that, or what it might look like, the Creative Commons Wiki has you covered:

Marking your work with a Creative Commons licence
You have chosen a CC license for your work. Now how do you go about letting the world know? Here are some examples of how to mark your work with the CC license.

The Creative Commons symbol is displayed under fair use.

Changing a licence once you have applied it to a work is tricky, so deciding what licence is right for your work is important.

Happily, Creative Commons is here to help:

Choose and Apply a Creative Commons Licence
A how-to from start to finish.
Choosing a Creative Commons Licence
Answer two questions to choose licence and recieve an image code to use when displaying your work.
Public Domain Licences
Crative Commons licenses help authors keep and manage their copyright on terms they choose. Creative Commons' public domain tools, on the other hand, enable authors and copyright owners who want to dedicate their works to the worldwide public domain to do so, and facilitate the labeling and discovery of works that are already free of known copyright restrictions.
Considerations for Licencors and Licencees
The following list sets out some basic things that you should think about before you apply a Creative Commons license to your material, or use Creative Commons-licensed material.