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Copyright Management - Author Rights: Creative Commons Licenses

A Shared Culture

Creative Commons Licensing

If you want to maintain copyright of your work, but grant specific rights to users, you can do so through a creative commons license. Many open access publishers require that you have a creative commons license on your work.


There are six different licenses to choose from:

  • Attribution
  • Attribution-NoDerivs
  • Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
  • Attribution-ShareAlike
  • Attribution-NonCommercial
  • Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs


The attribution license lets others use, copy, distribute and build upon your work as long as they cite you. The attribution non-commercial allows the same, but excludes use by commercial entities.


You can learn more about creative common licenses on the meet the licenses page, or use the Choose a License tool.