Commons:Copyright tags/Free Creative Commons licenses

Copyright tags

• Commonly used licenses
• General public domain
• Country-specific tags
• GNU licenses
• Free Creative Commons licenses
• Various free licenses
• Not free or uncertain
• Descriptive tags
• Index by source

A Creative Commons (CC) license enables free distribution of a copyrighted work such as a photograph, drawing, video etc. Files with Creative Commons Attribution (by) and Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (by-sa) licenses may be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. However, they must not include Non-Commercial (nc) or No-Derivatives (nd) restrictions. {{CC-zero}} and {{CC-PD}} licenses are also accepted. All files with a Creative Commons license should have a tag showing which license applies.

Earlier versions of the Creative Commons licenses included "ports", where they were adapted to the copyright laws of specific countries. Version 4.0 of the Creative Commons licenses, released on November 25, 2013, are generic licenses that are applicable to most jurisdictions. Creative Commons has suspended the porting program and recommends use of the unported 4.0 licenses, as does Wikimedia.

A partial list of Creative Commons license tags is given below. See Commons:Creative Commons copyright tags for a full list of allowed licenses. These include country specific licenses such as {{Cc-by-sa-3.0-vn}} that are based on the copyright laws of the country of origin, and more than 500 custom licenses such as {{ESA-Hubble}} that typically apply to files from a given source.

Attribution (by)

The Creative Commons Attribution (by) licenses allow free use as long as the author is attributed. Examples:

• {{Cc-by-4.0}} – Attribution 4.0
• {{Cc-by-3.0}} – Attribution 3.0
  • {{Cc-by-3.0-au}} – Attribution 3.0 Australia
  • {{Cc-by-3.0-de}} – Attribution 3.0 Germany
  • {{Cc-by-3.0-nz}} – Attribution 3.0 New Zealand
  • {{Cc-by-3.0-ph}} – Attribution 3.0 Philippines
  • {{Cc-by-3.0-us}} – Attribution 3.0 United States of America
  • {{Cc-by-3.0-igo}} - Attribution 3.0 IGO (intergovernmental organization}

Attribution-ShareAlike (by-sa)

The Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike (by-sa) licenses allow free use as long as the author is attributed and "share-alike" is required, meaning that copies or adaptations of the work must be released under the same or similar licence as the original. Examples:

• {{Cc-by-sa-4.0}} – Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0
• {{Cc-by-sa-3.0}} – Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0
• {{Cc-by-sa-3.0-igo}} - Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 IGO (intergovernmental organization}
  • {{Cc-by-sa-3.0-cr}} – Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Costa Rica
  • {{Cc-by-sa-3.0-it}} – Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Italy
  • {{Cc-by-sa-3.0-lu}} – Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Luxembourg
  • {{Cc-by-sa-3.0-ph}} – Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Philippines
  • {{Cc-by-sa-3.0-pl}} – Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Poland

Other

• {{Cc-by-sa-4.0,3.0,2.5,2.0,1.0}} – multilicense as cc-by-sa-4.0, cc-by-sa-3.0, cc-by-sa-2.5, cc-by-sa-2.0, and cc-by-sa-1.0.
• {{Cc-by-sa-3.0,2.5,2.0,1.0}} – multilicense as cc-by-sa-3.0, cc-by-sa-2.5, cc-by-sa-2.0, and cc-by-sa-1.0.
• {{Cc-by-sa-1.0+}} – multilicense as cc-by-sa-4.0, cc-by-sa-3.0, cc-by-sa-2.5, cc-by-sa-2.0, cc-by-sa-1.0 and any future versions.
• {{Cc-sa-1.0}} – ShareAlike 1.0 (the only one without the attribution restriction)
• {{Cc-zero}} – waives all rights (a non-US-centric PD) with the CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication

Old Creative Commons licenses

The older licenses have been superseded by more recent versions. They are still available for use. Examples:

• {{Cc-by-2.5}} – Attribution 2.5
  • {{Cc-by-2.5-br}} – Attribution 2.5 Brazil
  • {{Cc-by-2.5-ca}} – Attribution 2.5 Canada
  • {{Cc-by-2.5-pt}} – Attribution 2.5 Portugal
  • {{Cc-by-2.5-es}} – Attribution 2.5 Spain
• {{Cc-by-sa-2.5}} – Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5
  • {{Cc-by-sa-2.5-br}} – Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 Brazil
  • {{Cc-by-sa-2.5-dk}} – Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 Denmark
  • {{Cc-by-sa-2.5-za}} – Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 South Africa
  • {{Cc-by-sa-2.5-es}} – Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 Spain
• {{Cc-by-2.0}} – Attribution 2.0/2.1
  • {{Cc-by-2.0-de}} – Attribution 2.0 Germany
  • {{Cc-by-2.0-it}} – Attribution 2.0 Italy
  • {{Cc-by-2.1-jp}} – Attribution 2.1 Japan
  • {{Cc-by-2.0-es}} – Attribution 2.0 Spain
• {{Cc-by-sa-2.0}} – Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0/2.1
  • {{Cc-by-sa-2.0-at}} – Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Austria
  • {{Cc-by-sa-2.0-be}} – Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Belgium
  • {{Cc-by-sa-2.0-br}} – Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Brazil
  • {{Cc-by-sa-2.0-tw}} – Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Taiwan
• {{Cc-by-1.0}} – Attribution (Compatible with Wikitravel)
• {{Cc-by-sa-1.0}} – Attribution-ShareAlike (Compatible with Wikitravel)
• {{Cc-by-sa-2.5,2.0,1.0}} to multilicense as cc-by-sa-2.5, cc-by-sa-2.0, and cc-by-sa-1.0.

Source-specific Creative Commons licenses

A small sample of source-specific Creative Commons licenses is given below. See Category:Custom CC license tags for a complete list of over 500 such licenses.

• {{Attribution-NavyofBrazil}} – Images of the Brazilian Navy.
• {{Attribution-TVSenadoBr}} - Video produced by TV Senado. The privacy policy states that all videos from their website are free for use provided the source and the author (if they are set out) is cited.
• {{DLR-License}} – Images from DLR that are licensed CC-BY-3.0-DE.
• {{Eso}} – Images from ESO.
• {{Geograph}} – for images from Geograph Britain and Ireland
• {{GJSTU-2.0}} – for contents licensed under the Government of Japan Standard Terms of Use (Ver.2.0).
• {{Kremlin.ru}} – for images from the website of the President of the Russian Federation.
• {{PLoS}} – Images from PLoS.
• {{YouTube CC-BY}} – for CC-BY 3.0 content from YouTube.