Creative Commons licences

In order to ensure that the reuse of open access publications is legally compliant and thus enable wider dissemination of these publications, it is common practice to grant free licenses. Creative Commons licences (open content licenses) are particularly widespread. These so-called CC licenses allow third parties to reuse a work free of charge under certain conditions.

[Translate to Englisch:] Shaddim; original CC license symbols by Creative Commons, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Select license

If possible, it is recommended to choose the CC BY license. It corresponds to the highest degree to the principles of open access and thus enables the greatest reuse. With this license, only the author needs to be credited when reusing the work. This means that it is permitted to share and edit this publication.

If the CC BY license is not suitable, there are other license variants that can be put together from the following four license modules using a modular principle:

  • BY: Attribution
    The author of the work must be named (mandatory module).
  • NC: Non-commercial
    The work may not be used commercially.
  • ND: No derivatives (no derivatives)
    The work may not be modified.
  • SA: Distribution under the same conditions (share alike)
    The work may be modified and distributed, but only under the original licence.

This allows six different license variants – from the CC BY license as the most liberal to the CC BY-NC-ND license as the most restrictive.
In terms of open access, the decisive factor in selecting a license should always be the degree of openness/reusability.