Before you decide that you want to apply a Creative Commons license or CC0 to your creative work, there are some important things to consider:

The licenses and CC0 are irrevocable.

Irrevocable means a legal agreement that cannot be canceled. That means once you apply a CC license to a work, the CC license applies to the work until the copyright on the work expires. This aspect of CC licensing is highly desirable from the perspective of reusers, because they have confidence knowing the creator can’t arbitrarily pull back the rights granted them under the CC license.

Because the licenses are irrevocable, it is very important to carefully consider the options before deciding to use a CC license on a work.

You must own or control copyright in the work.

Before licensing, be mindful about whether you have copyright to the work to which you’re applying a CC license. If you created the material in the scope of your employment, you may not be the copyright owner and may need to get permission from your employer before applying a CC license. 

Selecting the right license.

Rightsholders can determine if they want the public to adapt their works and, if so, on what terms. The best way to decide which license is appropriate is to think about why you want to share and how you hope others will use your work. For example: 

• Do you want to require others to use your work only in unadapted form?Or will they be able to adapt and innovate upon your work, including by translating it in other languages, or customizing it to better meet their needs?
• Are all reuses of your work acceptable, or do you need to restrict reuse in certain ways? 
  • You may only want to allow noncommercial uses of your work.
  • Or, you may require thatt adaptations are shared under the same or a compatible license.
• If yougive away all of your rights in your work (to the fullest extent allowed by law) so that it can be used by anyone in the world for any purpose, considerusing the public domain dedication tool, CC0, instead of a CC license.

See the CC License Chooser if you need help deciding which license or tool might be best for you. 

How do I apply a CC license to my work?

Once you’ve decided you want to use a CC license and know which license you want to use, applying it is simple. 

Technically, you just need to indicate which CC license you are applying to your work. However, we strongly recommend including a link (or writing out the CC license URL, if you are working offline) to the relevant CC license deed (e.g., https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). You can do this in the copyright notice for your work, on the footer of your website, or any other place that makes sense. It’s important for your notice to be placed somewhere that makes what the CC license covers clear to the public. 

When you are deciding how to apply your CC license, remember to make it easy for future users to understand what terms apply to their use of your work. Make your licensing statement easy to find and understand, and consider including additional information that a future user might need to provide good attribution to your work, such as the date of creation, your name, and a title for your work.