Creative Commons licenses are licenses that creators can apply to their work, free of charge. Creative Commons is a non-profit company based in San Francisco, CA. Its services have been available for roughly six years. Creative Commons licenses save collaborators the hassle of asking the creator for permission, because the restrictions the creator put on their work are clearly outlined under which type of license he or she selected for it.

According to the official website, Creative Commons licenses are issued with the creator's advantages in mind. Everyone is entitled to a copyright on his or her work, and Creative Commons works to ensure that this applies to creations that are shared online. The main goal of the company was to make collaboration with anyone who posts on the internet acceptable (as well as unacceptable if the user wishes to set the most restricted license to his or her work).

These licenses are used on websites such as Bitbucket, DeviantArt, and many other collaborative communities. Many creators also choose to set more restrictive licenses to their work on websites that encourage less collaboration. CC licenses are flexible and can be applied to any kind of work on any website, and can be used by anyone free of charge. The company is funded completely through donations.

Attribution

Lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon the creator's work, even commercially, as long as they credit the creator for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered. Recommended for maximum dissemination and use of licensed materials.

Attribution-ShareAlike

Lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit the creator and license their new creations under the identical terms. This license is often compared to “copyleft” free and open source software licenses. All new works based on the creator's will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use. This is the license used by Wikipedia, and is recommended for materials that would benefit from incorporating content from Wikipedia and similarly licensed projects.

Attribution-NoDerivs

Allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to the creator.

Attribution-NonCommercial

Lets others remix, tweak, and build upon the creator's work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge the creator and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

Lets others remix, tweak, and build upon the creator's work non-commercially, as long as they credit the creator and license their new creations under the identical terms.

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs

The most restrictive of the six main licenses, only allowing others to download the creator's works and share them with others as long as they credit the creator, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.

Note: This page is published under a CC Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported. The description of the license fits the goal of this wiki well.

Creative Commons Official Website

Informative Video about CC