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

Wikipedia’s information is available under a Creative Commons license—it’s freely licensed.

From Slate • Nov. 17, 2025

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

Google will then display images that have been licensed under Creative Commons.

From The Verge • Aug. 22, 2022

For starters, let me try to summarize the lessons and intuitions I've had about ebooks from my release of two novels and most of a short story collection online under a Creative Commons license.

From Ebooks: Neither E, Nor Books by Doctorow, Cory