Open science and research

Open content licences - Creative Commons

CC licences let creators and copyright owners give permission in advance for certain uses of their material. The various licence terms define the ways in which users can legally share, modify, or build upon a copyrighted work without the need to ask the owner/ creator for permission. 

CC licences are globally recognized and used for open academic publishing and sharing of research data.

Every CC licence ensures that creators get credit for their work.

Once granted, a CC licence cannot be withdrawn from someone who is already reusing your work under the licence, so think carefully before attaching a CC licence to your work.

CC licences and publications

Aalto University recommends CC BY for publications unless the publisher recommends another licence.

CC licences and research data

When publicly funded research data is published in a data repository, CC BY 4.0 is compulsory, compliant with the requirements defined in Open data directive, and implemented in Finland with the national law Laki julkisin varoin tuotettujen tutkimusaineistojen uudelleenkäytöstä. The attribution term of CC BY 4.0 licence ensures, that creators of research data are credited.
Researchers can also choose CC0 1.0 Universal waiver and ask to be credited. With a waiver the attribution is not a binding licence term, so attribution stacking can be avoided in cases of data being combined from multiple sources.
For research data that is not publicly funded, Aalto recommends the CC BY 4.0 licence, but other licences can be chosen to fulfil the goals of research work, funders' requirements, publishing agreement requirements and publishers' data availability policies.
For research data that is not publicly funded, dual licencing can be utilised in cases where the goal is selling commercial licences in addition to distributing a licence allowing only academic and other non-commercial uses.

How to choose a CC licence (in Aalto University Visual Resources Centre guide, based on Tarmo Toikkanen's image)

More information: Maria Rehbinder, [email protected], +358505703396.

Creative Commons (CC) is a global non-profit organisation which enables the sharing and reuse of copyrighted material by providing free ready-made machine-readable licence agreements.

The first version of the Creative Commons licences was released in 2002. The current version, 4.0, was released in 2013.

Guidance on choosing a CC-licence

CC licences may be applied to any type of work, research articles, conference papers, books, reports, educational resources, research data, images, and many other types of material in digital or printed form.

Every CC licence works around the world and lasts as long as the applicable copyright lasts.

CC licences are not an alternative to copyright - a work must be copyrighted in order to be licenced under a CC licence.

Under a CC licence, the copyright ownership remains with the licensor. The licensor can only be the current copyright holder or rights holder, usually the author unless the author has transferred copyright to the publisher. Retaining copyright is one of the main principles of Plan S.

If third party material is being used in the work e.g. through permission of the copyright owner, the author of the new work can only licence the part of the work to which they claim ownership. In this situation the author has to mark third party content to let others know that the entire new work may not be available under the selected CC licence.

It is not necessary to have just one licence for the whole work, e.g. text and images can be shared under different CC licences, but this has to be announced clearly.

CC licences are non-exclusive. Creators and owners can enter into additional, different licencing arrangements for the same material at any time, often referred to as “double licencing” or “dual-licencing”, see Publishing and Commercialization

Creative Commons does not recommend its licences for computer software and recommend using licences approved by the Free Software Foundation and the Open Source Initiative, see GNU GPL licences and Open Source licences.

Note, that CC0 is a waiver, not a CC licence. When CC0 is applied to a work or research data, the copyright owner renounces all rights, also the right to be named as an author. However, when CC0 material is used in research, the guidelines on good research practice should be followed, that is, the sources and authors should be named. Research data is often published with CC0 in order to avoid attribution stacking. With CC0 the attribution of authors is not a required licence term, but authors can state how they wish to be named according to good scientific practice.

CC licences are based on four basic terms:

Attribution (BY): You must always provide credit to the original author.

Share-Alike (SA): If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same licence as the original.

Non-Commercial (NC): You may not use the material for commercial purposes.

No-Derivatives (ND): You may not distribute modified versions of the work.

CC licences

All six CC licences require that users provide attribution (BY) to the creator when the material is used or shared.

Attribution CC BY

The most permissive of the Creative Commons licences which allows for maximum dissemination and use of the licenced work. The licence permits others to use, reproduce, disseminate or display the article in any way, including for commercial purposes as long as they credit the author for the original creation. It can also be used in digital research such as data mining and long-term preservation independent of publishers.

Major funders currently only accept the CC BY licence as compliant with their policy.

Creative Commons — Attribution 4.0 International — CC BY 4.0

Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA

The licence lets others remix, tweak, and build upon the work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit the copyright holder and licence their new creations under the identical terms. CC BY-SA is the recommended licence for teaching materials.

Creative Commons — Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International — CC BY-SA 4.0

Attribution-NoDerivatives CC BY-ND

The licence allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to the copyright holder.

Creative Commons — Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International — CC BY-ND 4.0

Attribution-NonCommercial CC BY-NC

This licence lets others remix, tweak, and build upon a work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge the copyright holder and be non-commercial, they do not have to licence their derivative works on the same terms.

Creative Commons — Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International — CC BY-NC 4.0

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA

The licence lets others remix, tweak, and build upon a work non-commercially, as long as they credit the copyright holder and licence their new creations under the identical terms.

Creative Commons — Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives CC BY-NC-ND

The most restrictive of the six main licences, only allowing others to download works and share them with others as long as they credit the copyright holder, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.

Creative Commons — Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International — CC BY-NC-ND 4.0Note that CC licences including term NonCommercial (NC) are problematic concerning open access, because it is difficult to determine commercial usage, for example ResearchGate can be considered as commercial usage. Use of this licence may also restrict research collaboration with companies.

Most publishers will ask you to choose a Creative Commons (CC) licence when publishing your work Open Access (Gold open access, APC fee). The majority offer CC BY licence for this purpose. Some journals may charge a higher open access publication charge for use of CC BY compared to the prices for publication under the other CC licences.

Hybrid open access journals may offer a variety of different Creative Commons licences, usually CC BY, CC BY-NC, or CC BY-NC-ND.

Some publishers offer their own licences over the content for which they get copyright. These licences may provide permissions to read, download, use, re-post, remix, and perform other actions on the content, for commercial or non-commercial purposes. They are also often more restrictive than the Creative Commons licences.

Publishers may also specify the licence that is applied to the works when shared through green open access (uploading AAM or FAM to an institutional repository). For example, Elsevier specifies that a CC BY-NC-ND licence is required.

Creative Commons

Creative Commons – FAQ

Help how to choose a CC licence

New version of CC licence chooser

Help how to choose a CC licence [image by Tarmo Toikkanen]

Considerations for licensors and licensees

How to licence research data (OpenAIRE)

Miten määrität aineistolle käyttöehdot – Webinaari (Maria Rehbinder, Youtube 16.5.2017, in Finnish)

OER Commons - the public digital library of open educational resources

Six Licences for Sharing your Work

SPARC Europe: Report “Open Access: An Analysis of Publisher Copyright and Licensing Policies in Europe, 2020” (49 pages)

Till Kreutzer: Avoin sisältö – Käytännön opas Creative Commons -lisenssien käyttämiseen. 2017. 76 sivua