How to Attribute a Creative Commons Licensed Work

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If you come across content or images that are licensed with Creative Commons (like all of the content and images on wikiHow) it's your responsibility to give credit the creator in a manner they specify. These instructions are clear in theory, but many people who apply CC licenses to their work do not specify how they would like to be attributed. In practice, here’s how you can handle the attribution requirements[1] when using Creative Commons licensed material.

Steps

1. “Keep intact any copyright notices for the work”: If a work you’re using has a notice that says “© 2008 Molly Kleinman”, reproduce that notice when you credit the work. If such a notice does not appear, don’t worry about it.
   
2. “Credit the author, licensor and/or other parties (such as a wiki or journal) in the manner they specify”: If a creator has a note attached to her work that says, “Please attribute Molly Kleinman as the creator of this work,” then attribute Molly Kleinman. If there is no note, but there is a copyright notice (see above), attribute the copyright holder named in the copyright notice. If there is no note or copyright notice but there is a user name, check the creator’s profile to see if it specifies how to attribute the creator’s work. If it doesn’t, attribute the user name. If there is no creator or author name of any kind, but there is a website (like wikiHow), attribute the website by name.
   
3. “The title of the Work”: If the work has a title, call it by name. If it doesn’t, you can just say “This work by Molly Kleinman…” or just “Untitled, by Molly Kleinman…” Whatever seems appropriate.
   
4. “The URL for the work if applicable”: Link back to the original source of the work. It can be argued that this is the most important part of the attribution notice. It can help creators keep track of places where their work appears by seeing what links are driving traffic to their websites. It also gives users of your work an easy way to track down the original source. If you are reproducing a CC-licensed work in a print format, you might prefer not to include a long and ugly URL, and there might be situations where leaving out a URL is appropriate. But in general, the link is the most valuable part of the attribution.
   
5. “The URL for the Creative Commons license”: Link to the license. The original work should have a link to the license under which it was released; link to the same place. You do not need to include the full text of the license when you reproduce a CC-licensed work.
   
6. There is no standard way to format the attribution of a CC-licensed work, and you can adapt the style or phrasing to suit your needs or the standard citation style of your discipline.
   
   • An Ideal Attribution
     This video features the song “Play Your Part (Pt.1)” by Girl Talk, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license. © 2008, Greg Gillis.
     
   • A Realistic Attribution
     Photo by mollyali, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.
     
   • A Derivative Work Attribution
     This is a video adaptation of the novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license. Copyright © 2003 Cory Doctorow.
     
   
   

Tips

• The licenses do not require you to inform a creator that you are using her CC-licensed work, but it’s a nice thing to do. Most people are very happy to learn that someone is using and building upon their creations; that’s why they use Creative Commons licenses in the first place.
  

Warnings

• Just because the work is licensed under Creative Commons doesn't mean you can post in anywhere, or do whatever you want with it. If the license is CC-BY, attributing the work is all that you need. The following CC licenses, however, have additional restrictions or requirements:[2]
  
  • Attribution-NoDerivs (You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.)
    
  • Attribution-ShareAlike (If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one.)
    
  • Attribution-NonCommercial (You may not use this work for commercial purposes.)
    
  • Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (You may not use this work for commercial purposes; You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.)
    
  • Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (You may not use this work for commercial purposes; If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one.)
    
  
  

Related wikiHows

• How to Understand Copyright Basics
  
• How to Attribute a Photo on wikiHow
  
• How to Import Content Into wikiHow
  
• How to Apply the Creative Commons License to Flickr Photographs
  
• How to wikiHow:Attribution
  

Sources and Citations

• Molly Kleinman. CC HowTo #1: How to Attribute a Creative Commons licensed work. Licensed CC-BY. Original source.
  

1. ↑ http://wiki.creativecommons.org/FAQ#How_do_I_properly_attribute_a_Creative_Commons_licensed_work.3F


2. ↑ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/

Article provided by wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Attribute a Creative Commons Licensed Work. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.