Creative Commons licenses are pre-formulated license agreements created by the non-profit organization Creative Commons, allowing copyright holdersThe German Copyright Act (UrhG) protects certain intellectual creations (works) and services. Works include literary works, photographic, film and musical works, as well as scientific or technical representations such as drawings, plans, maps, sketches, tables and plastic representations (§ 2 UrhG). The artistic, scientific achievements of persons or the investment made, on the other hand, are considered to be services worthy of protection (ancillary copyright).The author is entitled to publish and utilize the work. Read More to grant public usage rights to their creative works. Once a work under a CC license is used by third parties according to the terms of the licenseIn a license agreement or through an open license, copyright holders specify how and under what conditions their copyrighted work may be used and/or exploited by third parties. Read More, a contract is established (TUM, 2023, p. 5).

Due to the standardized, modular structure of existing licenses, they are easy to understand even without legal expertise, and over 2 billion CC-licensed works are widely distributed, supporting a culture of sharing and reuse. They are both human- and machine-readable (Creative Commons, 2023a; 2023b).

Each modular element sets a condition for reuse, visualized by symbols and highly recognizable, allowing users to quickly understand what needs to be observed when reusing the work.The worldwide license agreements are composed of these elements:

ELEMENTS

• BY – Attribution: The creator’s name must be credited.
• NC – Non-Commercial: The work may not be used for commercial purposes.
• ND – No Derivatives: The work may not be altered.
• SA – Share Alike: Redistribution of the work must be under the same license terms.

These elements make up the six licenses available worldwide (Creative Commons, 2023b).