Creative Commons
Copyright includes the right to permit others to use, share or modify your content. The easy way for a copyright owner to grant certain kinds of permission to everyone who encounters the copyrighted work is to use a Creative Commons licence.
UKRI funders, Wellcome Trust, Gates Foundation and European Union policies mandate the use of creative commons licences.
Creative Commons licences require the user of the work to give the ‘appropriate credit’ (unless the rightsholder has specifically given up that requirement through a public domain dedication, known as a Creative Commons - Zero licence).
The licence once granted lasts as long as the copyright on the work, as long as the licence is used properly.
There are 6 creative commons licences and they apply worldwide.
The default creative commons licence for the Liverpool Research Data Catalogue is CC- BY but others can be selected if necessary during the deposit process.
- Attribution only. Anyone who uses your work/data is required to provide appropriate credit ( citations are provided in many research data repositories with a corresponding DOI) and indicate what, if any, changes are made
- Attribution, ShareAlike. Same flexibility as CC BY but also states the rights you have to give your new work. If another researcher were to use this work and adapt it, then that new work has to carry the exact same license.
- Attribution, No Derivatives. You have to give credit and you cannot change the work in any fashion. You can use the work for any purpose, commercial, non-commercial, educational, gaming, etc, so long as you give appropriate credit and do no alter the work in anyway.
- Attribution, Non-Commercial. Commercial in the Creative Commons context means intended for commercial advantage or monetary gain. You must attribute, and you can modify and change as long as the resulting adaptation is not used for commercial purposes. Sharing or distributing can only be done in a non-commercial way.
- Attribution, Non Commerical and Share Alike. This is the same as above except you can only share in the same way. The licence above does not limit how you share, this licence does.
- Attribution, Non Commercial, No Derivatives. All you can do is share the work. Users must provide the appropriate credit and cannot modify in any manner nor share for commercial gain. This is the most restrictive licence and the least appropriate for open research data.
