Creative Commons licenses are legally enforceable licenses that creators and other rights holders can use to offer certain usage rights to the public, while reserving other right with the aim of expanding the range of things available for others to share, quote, adapt, and build upon.
Creative Commons licenses do two things:
As long as you obey the terms of the license attached to the work, you can use Creative Commons licensed material without fear of accidentally infringing someone’s copyright.
The nonprofit Creative Commons organization works to increase the amount of creativity (cultural, educational, and scientific content) in “the commons” — the body of work that is available to the public for free and legal sharing, use, repurposing, and remixing.
Using a CC license enables for open educational resources to allow for the 5R's
When a creator or copyright holder assigns an open license to their work they are specifying how they want others to reuse it. Open licensing does not replace copyright. Open licenses work with copyright to promote shared use. This changes the copyright from “all rights reserved” to “some rights reserved.” More info https://www.cccoer.org/learn/open-licensing/
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