Creative Commons (CC) was born from a simple idea: access to knowledge is a human right, and sharing that knowledge is fundamental to the growth and progress of humanity. Copyright, particularly as it is written into the U.S. Constitution, was created to incentivize authors to share their works by granting them a limited monopoly over them. But the continued extension of that term and copyright’s default to “all rights reserved” began to create a central tension as the internet made sharing easier than ever and remixing became the new norm.

When the United States enacted a piece of copyright legislation in 1998 (called the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act) which extended the term of copyright for every work in the country by 20 years, Stanford Law Professor Lawrence Lessig believed this new law was unconstitutional. Together with a web publisher, Eric Eldred, who had made a career of making works available as they passed into the public domain, they challenged the constitutionality of the Act. The case, known as Eldred v. Ashcroft, went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Eldred lost the case, but Lessig was inspired by Eldred’s goal and the fight they had undertaken together. From that idea, Lessig along with Edlred and Hal Abelson founded a small nonprofit organization to help power the open movement, and Creative Commons was born. In 2002, the new organization published the Creative Commons licenses: a set of free, public licenses that allow creators to keep their copyrights while sharing their works on their own terms.

From the start, Creative Commons licenses were intended to be used by creators all over the world. The CC founders were initially motivated by a piece of U.S. copyright legislation, but similarly restrictive copyright laws all over the world restricted how our shared culture and collective knowledge could be used. Today, Creative Commons licenses are used on tens of billions of works.

Since the founding of Creative Commons, much has changed about the way people share, remix, and access content. CC has responded by evolving to address new legislation, policy, and new technologies that have the potential to limit access to knowledge. Today, in the age of AI, where all human expressions are also now data for machines, CC’s mission has never been more important. We’re here to protect the commons and find ways for humanity to create and share in ways that are beneficial for all.

AI systems depend on vast amounts of human-created content, often collected without the awareness or involvement of those who made it. This dynamic has concentrated power in the hands of a few and undermined trust in the social contract of the commons. CC licenses became the legal and normative foundation of the open movement, but it is clear that new tools, new frameworks, and new approaches are needed to address the ways that AI has disrupted the online ecosystem of sharing.

As Creative Commons celebrates its 25th year in 2026, we continue to build a commons of knowledge and culture that is inclusive, just, and inspires reciprocity. Learn about the infrastructure we build and maintain [link to Build] and the ways in which those tools are put into practice [link to Implement] across sectors and across the globe to empower the world to share.

CC’s achievements and work of the past 25 years have not been done alone. Our community of activists, researchers, artists, policymakers, and engaged citizens passionate about open access has helped CC grow from a law school basement into a global nonprofit organization and a powerful movement. Learn how to join us [link to Ways to Give] in the work ahead.

1998: The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA)

The CTEA was a piece of copyright legislation in the United States that extended the term of copyright for every work in the United States—even those already copyrighted—for another 20 years. With this legislation, the copyright term for individuals equaled the creator’s life plus 70 years. Stanford Law Professor Lawrence Lessig believed this new law was unconstitutional. The term of copyright had been continually extended over the years, and a wealth of copyrighted works were put in limbo, unable to move into the public domain and join the pool of knowledge and creativity to be used to create new works.

1999: Eldred v. Ashcroft

Represented by Lawrence Lessig, web publisher Eric Eldred, who had made a career of making works available as they passed the public domain, challenged the constitutionality of the CTEA. The historical purpose of copyright as written into the U.S. Constitution was to create an incentive for authors to share their works by granting them a limited monopoly over them. Lessig argued that the CTEA was inconsistent with the spirit of the U.S. Constitution’s progress clause, which allows for securing exclusive rights for limited times—not indefinitely. Lessig’s interpretation of the inclusion of the clause was that it was intended to ensure that copyright holders don’t too heavily influence the development and distribution of our culture. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court but resulted in a loss for Eldred.

2001: Creative Commons is Founded

In 2001, Lawrence Lessig, Hal Abelson, and Eric Eldred created a nonprofit organization called Creative Commons. Intended as a grassroots movement of creators, also known as copyright owners, Creative Commons aimed to devise a way of allowing them to decide the terms on which they shared their work. Instead of choosing between retaining or relinquishing all rights, creators could define their own terms.

2002: The First Creative Commons Licenses

Lawrence, Hal, and Eric published the first Creative Commons licenses, a set of free, public licenses allowing creators to keep their copyrights while sharing their works on more flexible terms than the default “all rights reserved.” They sought to create an easy way for creators who wanted to share their works in ways that were consistent with copyright law.

2003: 1 Million Works CC-Licensed
2004: Creative Commons Launches Version 2.0 of Licenses

After gathering feedback from the open-source community over several months, the Creative Commons licenses were revised for the first time in 2004. The main difference between the first and second versions of licenses was that all licenses would require attribution of the original author.

2004: Flickr Enables CC Licensing

Flickr, a photo and video hosting website, announced support for CC in 2004. Users could choose to license the content uploaded to Flickr under a CC license, allowing them to share certain rights to use their photos with others. Today, Flickr has the largest collection of CC-licensed images on earth.

2005: Creative Commons Launches Version 2.5 of Licenses

In 2005, the Creative Commons licenses were tweaked, resulting in the release of the CC 2.5 licenses. The main difference between the CC 2.5 and CC 2.0 licenses was the ability to designate an attribution party to be credited alongside the author using the tweaked attribution language of “and/or.” This change allowed for varied attribution possibilities—to the author, a wiki, an author and a publisher—to as many parties as the author or licensor sees fit.

2006: Creative Commons Licenses Tested in a European Court

The first court decision involving a Creative Commons license was handed down on March 9, 2006, by the District Court of Amsterdam. Adam Curry sued Dutch tabloid Weekend (owned by Audax) for reproducing his Flickr photos in a story about his children. Adam had published the images under a CC-BY-NC-SA license. Weekend claimed they were misled by the “this photo is public” notice and didn’t see the CC license link.

The Court ruled that Curry owned the copyright, the photos were subject to the CC License, and Audax should have conducted a proper examination before publishing internet photos. Had they done so, they would have found the License. The Court determined that Audax violated the License conditions and ruled in Curry’s favor. The case confirmed that the conditions of a Creative Commons license automatically apply to the content licensed under it.

2006: CC Search Launches
CC launched the CC search function in 2006 to facilitate the discovery of licensed content. The search interface included options to filter for only content that allows commercial or derivative use.
2006: 50 Million Works CC-Licensed
2007: Launch – Version 3.0 of Creative Commons Licenses

In 2007, CC launched version 3.0 of the licenses. When they were first released, CC licenses were drafted based on U.S. copyright law. They were called the “generic” license because they didn’t identify a specific jurisdiction or governing law to apply to the interpretation of the license. Version 3.0 focused on internationalizing the generic license and international harmonization of the CC licenses. It additionally expanded to encompass CC’s vision of establishing a compatibility structure to allow interoperability between flexible content copyright licenses.

2008: Public.Resource.Org Releases all U.S. Supreme Court Decisions and Court of Appeals Decisions

Public.Resource.Org released all U.S. Supreme Court and all Court of Appeals decisions between 1950 and 2008. Using the CC0 label, the files indicate that the contents are Works of the United States Government and free of copyright or other restrictions for their dissemination and reuse. The release of the decisions was an important step in reducing barriers to legal cases and materials, which are essential for our democratic system of government.

2008: ProPublica Launches and Publishes All Stories Under CC Licenses

ProPublica, a 32-person independent newsroom producing investigative journalism, launched in 2008 in a landmark moment for open culture. Encouraging others to “steal its stories” means that other sites may reproduce their stories as long as they’re credited and linked under the CC BY-NC-ND license.

2009: U.S. White House Adopts CC BY License for 3rd Party Content

For the first time in history, the Barack Obama Administration incorporated the CC-BY license into all its 3rd party content on whitehouse.gov following the 2009 inauguration. Today, the administration retains the same CC BY 3.0 license for its 3rd party content.

2009: Creative Commons Launches CC0

Dedicating works to the public domain was nearly impossible for those wanting to contribute their works for public use before copyright or database protection terms expired. CC helped solve this problem in 2009 by giving scientists, educators, artists, and other creators a way to waive their copyright and related rights in their works to the fullest extent allowed by law. The CC0 tool clarifies the status of your work unambiguously worldwide and facilitates reuse.

2009: Wikipedia Switches to CC License

To increase the accessibility and interoperability of Wikipedia content and align with the Wikimedia Foundation’s mission of sharing free knowledge, Wikipedia voted in favor of adding the CC-BY-SA license to its Wikimedia sites. This change allowed creators to take information from Wikipedia and use it alongside CC-licensed material. The resulting new work could then be licensed under a CC license.

2012: Creative Commons Announces the OER Policy Registry

The open community identified a need for more information to help with their work through a database of open education policies that they could easily access and update. In response to this need, CC received a small grant to create an OER Policy Registry in 2012. This registry records policies related to Open Education and Open Educational Resources from all educational sectors and levels. In addition, it supports finding good practice policy examples for reuse and bench learning and charts the growth in open educational policy-making worldwide.

2013: Creative Commons Launches Version 4.0 of Licenses

After years of work with a wide international network of affiliates, experts, and stakeholders, CC launched Version 4.0 of the licenses in 2014. These licenses are the most internationally enforceable set to date! In addition, we introduced official translations of CC licenses so that users around the world could read and understand the complete licenses in their local languages.

2013: Creative Commons Publishes Intergovernmental Organization (IGO) Licenses

Sharing information and content is critical to the success of IGOs—the data created by IGOs can be extremely valuable to the diverse communities they serve! In 2013, CC introduced the CC BY-IGO license, making it easier for IGOs to share information without dedicating precious resources to review and approve requests from end users—a process that could be pretty timely, resulting in resources less likely to be used, shared, or repurposed. This new License allowed for the dissemination, discoverability, reuse, and translatability of research and education materials while ensuring that the IGOs received the credit they deserved for the work they created.

2014: European Commission Endorses CC Licenses as Best Practice for Public Sector Content and Data

In 2014, the European Commission released licensing recommendations to support the reuse of public sector information in Europe. The recommendations suggested that Member States adopt standardized open licenses, such as CC licenses. Adopting the licenses would make it easier for the public to reuse documents, data, and other public sector materials, fostering open access and collaboration.

2015: CC Institute for Open Leadership

Emerging out of a demonstrated need to cultivate a new generation of “open leaders” with the dedication, skills, and relationships to continue growing and guiding the quickly emerging fields of open educational resources, open access, open science, open data, and open GLAM, CC launched the Institute for Open Leadership training program in 2015. This initiative aimed to identify and cultivate new leaders in open education, science, public policy, research, data and other fields on the values and implementation of openness in licensing, policies, and practices.

2015: 1 Billion Works CC-Licensed
2017: Creative Commons Releases Made With Creative Commons

CC staff Sarah Hinchcliff Pearson and Paul Stacey wrote Made With Creative Commons, a guide to sharing your knowledge and creativity with the world and sustaining your operation while you do. The book contends that sharing is good for business, contrary to popular belief. It was released on April 21, 2017, and then distributed to all attendees of the CC Global Summit.

2017: Creative Commons Open Education Platform Launches

In 2017, the CC Global Network completed a consultation process of renewing and reorganizing itself to support a growing global movement. Its new strategy was establishing defined focus areas or “platforms” to drive CC’s global activities. Open to all interested people working in open education, CC launched the Open Education Platform to help the community stay connected to global actions in open education resources, practices, and policies. Its members work on building and sustaining community, increasing educational access and equity, and using policy to open education opportunities for all.

2018: Creative Commons Certificate Program Launches

In 2018, CC launched the CC Certificate program to better teach open tools and practices to communities around the world. This program offers in-depth courses on open licensing, copyright, and the commons. It aims to equip people with the knowledge and skills they need to advocate for and support the adoption of CC licensing in their work and creative pursuits. Since its launch, the program has been completed by over 2000 graduates from 70 countries.

2019: EU Commission Adopts CC BY and CC0 for Sharing Information

In 2019, the European Commission adopted CC-BY 4.0 and CC0 to share published documents, including photos, videos, reports, peer-reviewed studies, and data. The Commission joined other public institutions worldwide that use standard, legally interoperable tools like CC licenses and public domain tools to share a wide range of content they produce. In addition to the CC BY, the Commission adopted the CC0 Public Domain Dedication to publish works directly in the global public domain. This action followed their 2014 recommendation on using CC licenses such as CC BY and CC0 Public Domain Dedication in the context of Member States sharing public sector information.

2019: UNESCO Ratifies Recommendation on OER

The UNESCO Recommendation on Open Educational Resources was ratified at the 40th session of the UNESCO General Conference in 2019. CC has played a key role in the steering committee. In partnership with our open education colleagues, CC provided and continues to provide a suite of professional development, policy, networking, and consulting services to national governments as they engaged in national and regional efforts to implement the Recommendation.

2019: 2 Billion Works CC-Licensed
2020: Smithsonian releases collection under CC0

The Smithsonian—the world’s largest museum and research institution—removed copyright restrictions from 2.8 million digital collection 2D and 3D images and nearly two centuries of data. The Smithsonian used Creative Commons’ Public Domain Tool (CC0) to make millions of images and data freely available to the public.

2021: Start of the CC Open Culture Program

With the generosity of Arcadia, CC began our Open Culture program, a robust project to facilitate openness in the education and digital culture spaces. The program focuses on enabling GLAMs (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) to freely and openly share their collections online in participatory, interactive, sustainable, ethical, and equitable ways.

2021: CC Open Climate Campaign Launched

To address the lack of access to climate change research, CC and our partners—SPARC and EIFL with the guidance of the Steering Committee—launched the Open Climate Campaign. The initiative, which ran from 2022 to 2024, significantly raised awareness about the lack of access to climate research. It also revealed how essential open access to science and climate resources is if we are to find faster, more equitable solutions to address the climate crisis.

2021: UNESCO Ratifies Recommendation on Open Science

In a significant step towards creating a world where science sharing is open and inclusive by design, the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science was unanimously ratified in 2021 at UNESCO’s 41st General Conference. CC played an active role in this achievement as part of the global community that drafted, reviewed, and revised the Recommendation. It sets an international standard for defining open science and associated policies and practices to propel better sharing throughout the global science community.

2021: CC Search Re-Launches as Openverse, Supported by the WordPress Community

In 2021, CC Search transitioned to Openverse on WordPress, allowing users to filter results by use case, license type, and other criteria. This transition was a significant improvement over the previous search function. Openverse also integrated language support, enabling users to search in any of 10 fully translated languages. Today, the search engine is available in 12 fully translated languages.

2022: CC Launches Movement for a Better Internet

As part of CC’s strategic goal of Better Sharing, we joined six other organizations to launch the Movement for a Better Internet. We are a community of advocates, artists, academics, and civil society groups working to promote policies that create a better internet for people everywhere.

2022: CC Launched Open Culture Voices

In 2022, CC launched a series of interviews with open culture experts from around the world speaking on their experiences making cultural heritage openly accessible online. The series ran for two years and featured 65 open culture experts and practitioners.

2023: 2.5 Billion Works CC-Licensed
2023: CC Begins Working in Open Climate Data

Creative Commons began enabling open access to public climate data worldwide in response to the UN Sustainable Development Goal for climate action. We advanced a global, community-supported approach to improving the openness, interoperability, and reuse of large climate datasets and metadata by convening leading institutions such as the UN World Meteorological Organization and the Group on Earth Observations, with practical recommendations, hands-on training, and policy engagement across intergovernmental partners.

2023: CC Launches Open Infrastructure Circle (OIC)

To ensure our organization is around for years to come, CC launched the OIC. CC licenses are a free and reliable public good, but their infrastructure and stewardship take a lot of money and work to maintain. The OIC will help provide long-term, stable funding for this critical work for years to come.

2024: CC and the University of Nebraska at Omaha co-launched the First Professional Development Microcredential Course derived from CC Certificate content

In 2024, CC co-launched a professional development micro-credential course titled “Introduction to Open Educational Resources” in partnership with the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO). Craig Finlay, OER and STEM Librarian at UNO, took the certificate course for Academic Librarians in 2021 and has advocated for open education in various capacities since completing the course. As a co-creator of the course, Craig aimed to bring CC licensing expertise to more learners, and UNO provided a pathway for this. The course remixes Certificate lessons in open licensing, copyright, open education, fair use, and the public domain.

2024: CC Expands to Openly License Research and Preprints

Creative Commons began advancing the adoption of CC BY licensing across the life sciences, in close collaboration with research preprint server partners such as arXiv, bioRxiv, medRxiv, and with funders of open science such as the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and the Gates Foundation. This work drives durable changes in research sharing norms and infrastructure, informed funder and platform policies, and measurably increased open licensing of research outputs, expanding access, reuse, and global equity in scientific knowledge.

2024: Launch of the Open Heritage Coalition

CC launched the Open Heritage Coalition, formerly known as the TAROCH Coalition (Towards a Recommendation on Open Cultural Heritage), to advance equitable access to heritage in the public domain. The Coalition was led by representatives of a global, diverse community of organizations and institutions involved in cultural heritage and with an interest in open cultural heritage. While the individual missions differed, all Coalition members believe in the transformative power of open solutions and share a vision of fair and equitable access to cultural heritage.

2024: CC Licenses become officially registered as Digital Public Goods

In 2024, the Digital Public Goods Alliance (DPGA) accepted Creative Commons’ legal tools into the DPG Registry. The DPGA is a multi-stakeholder initiative, endorsed by the United Nations Secretary-General, that works to accelerate the attainment of the UN Sustainable Development Goals in low- and middle-income countries by facilitating the discovery, development, use of, and investment in digital public goods (DPGs).

2025: CC becomes an official UNESCO partner

CC was established as an official NGO partner to UNESCO. As an official NGO partner, CC had the opportunity to contribute to UNESCO’s program and to interact with other official partner NGOs with common goals. These activities included participating in UNESCO meetings and consultations on various subjects core to CC’s mission, participating in UNESCO’s governing bodies in an observer capacity, and taking part in consultations about UNESCO’s strategy and programs.

2025: CC Certificate alumni community reaches over 2,000 people across the world

CC’s robust certificate alumni community continues to grow and by 2025 has reached 2,231 people in 71 countries.

2025: CC publishes the Open Heritage Statement

The Open Heritage Coalition, convened by CC, publishes the Open Heritage Statement, a global call for equitable access to public domain heritage in the digital environment. The Statement celebrates open culture advocates, cultural heritage institutions, and community members worldwide who have championed openness, reflecting years of learning from local innovation to digital transformation, and demonstrating that the call for open heritage is truly global.