Recommended practices for attribution

You can use CC-licensed materials as long as you follow the license conditions. One condition of all CC licenses is attribution: crediting the author and giving the source information. Generally speaking, attribution must reasonably include all relevant information supplied by the licensor. Because each use case is different, you can decide what form of attribution is most suitable for your specific situation. The following examples are intended to illustrate what typical prudent practices look like. We expect community norms and expectations to evolve with time, and will adapt this guide accordingly. In addition to attribution, there are also things to consider as a licensor or a licensee. If you are a licensor and would like to learn how to mark your own material with a CC license, here.

Basic components of attribution

Whenever you are reusing CC licensed works, we recommend that the attribution include the Title, Author, Source, and License. This is true whether you’re sharing the work as-is or if you have made an adaptation. To remember these attribution elements, it’s helpful to think of the acronym: TASL.

Let’s now go through TASL — we will explain each element in more detail:

Title: What is the name of the work?

If a title was provided for the work, include it as a part of the attribution. Sometimes a title is not provided; in that case, there’s no need to mention the title.

The inclusion of title is a requirement of all CC licenses version 3.0 or earlier, and it is optional for the 4.0 suites. See Devil in the details.

Author: Who allows you to use the work?

We often use “author” as a shorthand when we are, legally speaking, referring to the “licensor” (a.k.a., the “copyright holder” or “rightsholder”). This is because, in most CC-licensed works, the licensor is the same person or entity as the author. When an author is licensing their work under a CC license, and has made their name available, include the author’s name as a component in your attribution. Sometimes, the licensor may want you to give credit to some other entity, like a company or institution, or the licensor may want to be credited by a pseudonym instead of their real name. In rare cases, the licensor may not want to be attributed at all. In all of these cases, do what the licensor requests.

Sometimes, the author will also provide a copyright notice, which consists of the copyright symbol, year of publication, and the name of the author/licensor. Include the copyright notice as a part of your attribution if such information is provided.

Source: Where can people find the work?

Please make it possible for future users to find the source of the material by including a URL or hyperlink where the work resides. This often is where you found the work. If you found it somewhere other than the original site, try to include information about the original site where the work was first shared publicly. It is also better to use the original URL instead of a shortened link, whether you are hyperlinking or printing out the entire URL.

License: How can you use the work?

You must specify which CC license was applied to the work you are reusing. Each of the six different CC licenses come with distinct requirements for re-use. We recommend that you name and provide a link to the license, e.g., BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) for a work licensed under CC BY 4.0.

Consider also including the “disclaimer of warranties,” which clarifies that the author makes no representations or warranties about the non-infringement or absence of other defects concerning the CC-licensed work. In plain English, this means that the users will use the work at their own risk.

To sum up, if the licensor has provided any information related to TASL, consider including them in your attribution. We also recommend providing links to the Title, Author, Source, and License, where possible, so future users can easily access the information they need on a work and the license terms.

Examples of attribution in different media

We will now look at some examples in different media.

Attributing an image

Here is a photo. Below the photo, we will go over some good and bad examples of how people might attribute it.

This is a great attribution

Let’s go through TASL:

Title? "Creative Commons 10th Birthday Celebration San Francisco"

Author? "Timothy Vollmer" - linked to his profile page

Source? "Creative Commons 10th Birthday Celebration San Francisco" - linked to original Flickr page

License? "CC BY 4.0" - linked to license deed

Most importantly, this attribution reasonably includes all the relevant information provided by the author.

This is a pretty good attribution

Because:

Title? Title is not noted but at least the source is linked.

Author? "Timothy Vollmer"

Source? "Photo" - linked to original Flickr page

License? "CC BY" - linked to license deed

As you see, a good attribution includes all the essential TASL elements, even though they may not mirror the format of credit the author has requested.

This is an incorrect attribution

Let’s go through TASL:

Title? Title of the image is not noted

Author? Author is not noted (It is a common mistake to attribute CC-licensed photos to CC, but Creative Commons is not the author!)

Source? No link to the original source

License? There is no mention of a license nor a link to the license. "Creative Commons" is the name of an organization; it does not equate to any of the licenses maintained by the Creative Commons.

This is a good attribution for material you modified slightly

Because:

Title, Author, Source, and License are all noted

Modification? "Desaturated from original"

This is a good attribution for material from which you created a derivative work

Because:

Original Title, Author, Source, and License are all noted

Derivative? "This work, "90fied", is a derivative of..."

New author of the derivative work is also noted

Note: If you're at a point where you are licensing derivative works, go to Marking your work with a CC license.

This is a good attribution for material from multiple sources

Because:

Title? Specific works are named, eg. "Box-and-whisker Plots"

Author? Different authors noted for the different works.

Source? Original materials are linked for each work

License? The different licenses (Creative Commons Attribution for Collaborative Statistics and Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike for the Khan Academy video) are spelled out and linked for each work

Lastly, it is clear which attribution belongs to which work.

You can visit the Saylor.org Introduction to Statistics course page to see how they marked it up directly.

Title, Author, Source, License

A good rule of thumb is to use the acronym TASL, which stands for Title, Author, Source, License.

Title - What is the name of the material?

If a title was provided for the material, include it. Sometimes a title is not provided; in that case, don't worry about it.

Author - Who owns the material?

Name the author or authors of the material in question. Sometimes, the licensor may want you to give credit to some other entity, like a company or pseudonym. In rare cases, the licensor may not want to be attributed at all. In all of these cases, just do what they request.

Source - Where can I find it?

Since you somehow accessed the material, you know where to find it. Provide the source of the material so others can, too. Since we live in the age of the Internet, this is usually a URL or hyperlink where the material resides.

License - How can I use it?

You are obviously using the material for free thanks to the CC license, so make note of it. Don't just say the material is Creative Commons, because that says nothing about how the material can actually be used. Remember that there are six different CC licenses; which one is the material under? Name and provide a link to it, eg. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ for CC BY.

→ If the licensor included a license notice with more information, include that as well.

Lastly, is there anything else I should know before I use it?

When you accessed the material originally did it come with any copyright notices; a notice that refers to the disclaimer of warranties; or a notice of previous modifications? (That was a mouthful!) Because that kind of legal mumbo jumbo is actually pretty important to potential users of the material. So best practice is to just retain all of that stuff by copying and pasting such notices into your attribution. Don't make it anymore complicated than it is -- just pass on any info you think is important.

→ Regarding modifications: Don't forget to note if you modified the work yourself (example). If you are at the point where you are creating and licensing derivative works (example), see Marking your work with a CC license.

These best practices are based on actual CC license requirements. Noting the title is a requirement of all CC licenses version 3.0 or earlier, optional for 4.0. Noting the author, source, license, and retaining any extra notices is a requirement of all CC licenses. See Devil in the details.

Devil in the details

If you have any doubts or questions, you can read the complete attribution requirements which are spelled out in detail in the legal code of every CC license, eg. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode#s3a. This chart compares the detailed requirements across all versions of CC licenses.

Don't make it too complicated

The license tells you to be reasonable:

You may satisfy the conditions in (1) and (2) above in any reasonable manner based on the medium, means and context in which the Licensed Material is used. For example, it may be reasonable to satisfy some or all of the conditions by retaining a copyright notice, or by providing a URI or hyperlink associated with the Licensed Material, if the copyright notice or webpage includes some or all of the required information.

There is no one right way; just make sure your attribution is reasonable and suited to the medium you're working with. That being said, you still have to include attribution requirements somehow, even if it's just a link to an About page that has that info. (More on different mediums below.)

Attribution in specific media

As stated above, best practices for attribution apply as reasonable to the medium you're working with. For media such as offline materials, video, audio, and images, consider:

1. Publishing a web page with attribution information. For example, on a webpage featuring your audio recording, provide a credit list of material you used that adheres to best practices above. Doing so allows not only your material, but the materials you attribute, to be found by search engines and other web discovery tools. If possible within the medium, make the Author, Source, and License links the user can follow.

Example:
This video features the song "Desaprendere (Treatment)" by fourstones, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.

2. Mentioning the credits within the media itself. For example, crediting videos can be a simple list of the materials used with their associated licenses in a screen at the end of a video. For audio, it can be a verbal recitation of credits at the end of the recording.

Video example 1: "Science Commons" by Jesse Dylan - see attribution starting at 1:52
Video example 2: "Video Editing and Shot Techniques: Study of jump cuts, match cuts and cutaways " video by New Media Rights - see attribution starting at 3:21
Audio example: "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" by Cory Doctorow read aloud. Mastered by John Taylor Williams - listen to attribution starting at 17:08

If you want to get Technical

If you really want to go there, we have a document about marking materials so that they are machine-readable.

Also, several groups are exploring ways to make attribution easier and simultaneously machine-readable for the web. Here are some tools that have been developed:

• Open Attribute - a browser plugin for Firefox and Chrome that grabs the CC license metadata on a web page and turns it into an attribution for you
• Commons Machinery - a suite of plugins for Firefox and open office tools that enables copying and pasting images with the attribution info already attached

Other guides to attribution

• How To Attribute CC Photos poster by foter
• Attributing Creative Commons Material (pdf) - Creative Commons Australia's publication is full of examples with colorful imagery.
• How to attribute works you reuse under a Creative Commons license by New Media Rights provides real world examples by different media type
• Library Resources Fox Valley Technical College provides examples of suggested OER attribution and citations. They recommend the following TASL format: “Content Title” from Encompassing Container Title, Version, by Author © Copyright date [Alternate owner if different from Author] is licensed with License [URL of license description]. Access at DOI or permalink or URL. Additional Publisher notes or licensing requirements.