What is Creative Commons?

Creative Commons is a non-profit organization that has, since 2001, published a family of standardized copyright licenses anyone can use to make their work legally available for others to share, remix, or build upon — within boundaries the author chooses.

Authors keep their copyright. The license simply communicates in advance what other people are allowed to do without having to write or ask for individual permission.

The licenses are written in three layers: the legal code (for lawyers and courts), a human-readable summary called the "Commons Deed", and machine-readable metadata so search engines and tools can recognize them automatically.