Creative Commons

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What Does Creative Commons Mean?

Creative Commons (CC) is a nonprofit organization that was formed in 2001 to provide free access to culture, education and research through the Web’s open source platform. CC licenses and tools are based on the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL). They offer a “some rights reserved” alternative to traditional copyright law, allowing various types of content to achieve full Web potential and compatibility.

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CC is also known as a Creative Commons license.

Techopedia Explains Creative Commons

Creative Commons licenses allow creators to maintain copyrights on their works while allowing others to copy and distribute those works. In Creative Commons licenses, work can be freely shared and distributed, as long as the creator is given proper credit and the work is distributed under the license’s specified conditions.

In December 2002, CC released its first set of free copyright licenses. Since then, CC licenses have been used worldwide by dozens of CC affiliates in the U.S., Canada and the UK. By 2009, there were approximately 350 million licensed CC works.

Based in Mountain View, Calif., the CC board includes entrepreneurs, philanthropists and experts in education, thought leadership, technology and law.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert

Margaret is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.