Creative Commons licenses incorporate a unique and innovative “three-layer” design.
Each license begins as a traditional legal tool, called the Legal Code layer of each license.
The second layer — the licenses we are most familiar with — are referred to as the Commons Deed (also known as the “human readable” version of the license). The Commons Deed is a handy reference for licensors and licensees, summarizing and expressing some of the most important terms and conditions. Think of the Commons Deed as a user-friendly interface to the Legal Code beneath, although the Deed itself is not a license, and its contents are not part of the Legal Code itself.
The final layer of the license design recognizes that software, from search engines to office productivity to music editing, plays an enormous role in the creation, copying, discovery, and distribution of works. In order to make it easy for the Web to know when a work is available under a Creative Commons license, there is a “machine readable” version of the license — a summary of the key freedoms and obligations written into a format that software systems, search engines, and other kinds of technology can understand.
Taken together, these three layers of licenses ensure that the spectrum of rights isn’t just a legal concept. It’s something that the creators of works can understand, their users can understand, and even the Web itself can understand.
Last Minute Details
Remember the license may not be revoked. Once you apply a CC license to your material, anyone who receives it may rely on that license for as long as the material is protected by copyright and similar rights, even if you later stop distributing it.
Take note of the particular version of the license on any work that you are using (or creating). The current version (4.0) differs from prior versions in important respects. For example, the 4.0 licenses are referred to as “international.” Version 3.0 licenses were referred to as “unported” licenses until 2010, at which point they were re-branded as the “international” licenses as well.
At that point, Creative Commons added a global flag to the licenses and deeds. In the 1.0, 2.0, and 2.5 versions, the international licenses were called the “generic” licenses. The generic licenses were drafted to conform with U.S. copyright law only.
Starting with version 3.0, Creative Commons drafted its core suite of licenses to conform to relevant international treaties and drafting conventions. In this sense, version 3.0 and the current 4.0 international license suites are jurisdiction-agnostic: these licenses do not mention and are not drafted against any particular jurisdiction’s laws or statutes. They are intended to function without adjustment in all jurisdictions around the world.
This content is adapted from the following work:
“License Versions” by Creative Commons, licensed under CC BY 4.0
Unless otherwise noted, this work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.