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Best Practices for Marking Content with CC Licensing: Creators

As a creator using a CC license, it is important to properly note the license you have chosen so that others know what they can and can't do with your work. No matter what the context, CC licenses should be cited to enable their full potential as a legal tool.

Our license chooser is designed to make this process simple - answer a few questions and a formatted HTML code will be generated for you:

  1. Insert this HTML code into your webpage so that your work is clearly marked.
  2. This HTML code includes RDFa, a very important aspect of marking your work so that others can find it easily.

From there, here are three steps to marking perfection:

  1. The full URI (link) to the license. Example: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/.
  2. A visible notation (most commonly text) that states the license being used. Example: Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
  3. Optionally, the Creative Commons license icons, including the CC logo.

NOTE: Because each CC license represents a different set of permissions and restrictions, it is important to note the specific license used. Displaying only the CC icon, “Creative Commons”, or “Some Rights Reserved” is insufficient; always include the full URL.

In order for others to credit you for your work, it is preferable to provide an attribution name and URL. If your work is a derivative work using other CC-licensed material, be sure to look at our Marking for Users primer as well.

Markingterms.png

See Also: Tagging

Marking Specific Media

While remaining similar in intent, marking will vary depending on the medium. The following are some helpful tips on making sure your media is marked correctly as they will hopefully be shared beyond the originally hosted file.

Below are general examples for each medium, if a more technical explanation is your goal, please see Marking Works (technical):

Text

Image

  • As adding a watermark or other visual marker on an image ultimately detracts from the original, a safe method of indicating license choice consists of two actions:
    • ensure that the image has [XMP metadata] support with your name, date, and license choice.
    • When publishing the image on your website or another's, make sure that your license choice is clearly visible to humans. For added benefit, ensure search engines can see it also via the use of [RDFa], which you can take from the HTML code given to you by the [license chooser].

Audio

  • However, it is suggested that all audio files which are licensed with a CC license perform two actions:
    • ensure that the audio file has metadata support with your name, date, and license choice.
    • When publishing the audio file on your website or another's, make sure that your license choice is clearly visible to humans. For added benefit, ensure search engines can see it also via the use of [RDFa], which you can take from the HTML code given to you by the [license chooser].
  • Also, if it is practical to do so (for podcasts, for instance, not song tracks), adding an audio bumper to the beginning of the file with your choice of license indicated works. Here are some intro bumpers which you can use to build upon.

Video

  • For movies which have the ability to include a 2-5 second copyright frame, it is advised to use the same format as what is suggested for Textual works:
  • Here is a collection of stills which can be used as license bumpers:

For more advanced instructions, see the following pages:

Marking Specific Formats

Marking on Specific Sites

Content Directories

[CC-enabled content directories] help you share your works with others while properly indicating the license they are under. Often, they will also make your content searchable for those looking for reusable/shareable works

Does your favorite community not have CC-licenses enabled? You can usually indicate that you are using CC somewhere in an info box, but contact them and let them know it is a feature you would like to see.

Here are a couple guides to help you CC license your material on the specific sites listed below:

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