Creative Commons is the nonprofit organization behind the world’s most widely used open licenses and the leading tools for sharing in the public domain. Creative Commons helps build and sustain a thriving commons of shared knowledge and culture so that it can power human creativity, equity, and innovation.

For over two decades, CC has developed tools and frameworks for better sharing, protecting access to knowledge and advocating for policies that center equity, accessibility, and reciprocity.

• • Build

    Learn more about the CC tools

  • Implement

    Learn where the CC tools make an impact, discover the commons, and start CC licensing and using CC-licensed content

  • Engage

    Join us via trainings and webinars, learn about our advocacy priorities, and become part of the CC community.

We are all builders of the commons

Every song shared, paper published, lesson taught, or image released into the world becomes part of a collective good. This is the commons: a living body of shared creativity and knowledge which is the foundation upon which we all build. Access to this knowledge is not just a privilege, it is a human right, recognized in the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

For 25 years, Creative Commons has empowered people everywhere to contribute to the commons, offering the legal tools that enable creativity and knowledge to flow freely. Today, tens of billions of works are CC licensed. This is a testament to humanity’s willingness to share and to CC’s role as the connective tissue of the open ecosystem.

Stewarding the Commons in the Age of AI

New technologies are transforming how we create, distribute, access, and interpret knowledge. They are also changing how information is controlled on the internet. AI systems are built on the commons and trained on centuries of human thought and culture—on the commons itself. What started as a promise of better technology and even more access to knowledge is putting all that we’ve built at risk.

At this pivotal moment, CC is shifting from simply enabling individual acts of sharing to defending, expanding, and renewing the commons itself. Protecting the commons in the age of AI must go beyond copyright with new legal, technical, and social approaches that ensure knowledge flows while respecting human dignity and collective rights.

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The future of creativity, innovation, and democracy depends on an open, vibrant commons.

Creative Commons is more than licensing content. We are safeguarding the shared cultural infrastructure humanity needs to flourish, now and for generations to come, by ensuring attribution, defending the right to access knowledge, and building tools that go beyond copyright to meet the challenges of our time.

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