Share Your Work with Creative Commons: Six Creative Commons (CC) License Types

Creative Commons provides six standard licenses built on four basic conditions, which can be searched by web search engines, and which automatically grant certain permissions without requiring correspondence with the creator.

Attribution (CC BY): This license allows others to copy, distribute, display, and/or perform a work, as long as the author/creator is credited. All CC licenses require attribution.

Share Alike (CC BY SA): This license requires others who use the work to share their new creations under the same license terms.  This license was based on open source software licenses, and is intended to build the "creative commons."

No Derivative Works (CC BY ND): Under this license, others who reuse a work may not modify, adapt, translate, or remix the original, but must copy it exactly.

Non Commercial (CC BY NC): Under this license, an original work may be reused, modified, altered, etc., but not used for any commercial purpose.

Two additional licenses combine terms:

Attribution Non-commercial Share Alike: The original work may be used for non-commercial purposes, as long as it is properly credited, and the new work is licensed under the identical terms as the original.

Attribution Non-commercial No Derivative Works:  The most restrictive license, otherwise known as the "free advertising" license, provides that an original work may be reused for non-commercial purposes, as long as it is credited properly, and copied exactly.