Creative Commons

American  

noun

1. Sometimes creative commons a set of various licenses that allow people to share their copyrighted work to be copied, edited, built upon, etc., while retaining the copyright to the original work (often used attributively): a creative commons license.

   We’re happy for other sites to share these photos under Creative Commons;

   a creative commons license.

2. the nonprofit organization that releases these licenses.

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Etymology

Origin of Creative Commons

First recorded in 2000–05

Example Sentences

This article first appeared on KFF Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

From Salon • Aug. 26, 2025

It also asserts she lifted an image without crediting the source as required by a Creative Commons license.

From Science Magazine • Jan. 8, 2024

One of the projects we are working on is to improve Creative Commons, like remove the ambiguity in a lot of these contracts and come up with standards.

From The Verge • Apr. 12, 2022

When somebody makes an edit to Wikipedia, they agree to release their contribution to the public interest via a Creative Commons license.

From Slate • Dec. 9, 2021

O’Reilly Media, founded by Tim o’Reilly in 1978 to publish computer and high-tech books, began using the Creative Commons Founders’ Copyright in 2003.

From The eBook is 40 (1971-2011) by Lebert, Marie