The Creative Commons site defines four main clauses for licensing of content you've created and placed on the web:
Attribution You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your copyrighted work — and derivative works based upon it — but only if they give credit the way you request. Noncommercial You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your work — and derivative works based upon it — but for noncommercial purposes only No Derivative Works You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform only verbatim copies of your work, not derivative works based upon it. Share Alike You allow others to distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs your work.
This is, of course, assuming you want to share what you've created in some way. Everything you do is copyrighted by default until you say otherwise -- granting no rights to anyone whatsoever. When you select a Creative Commons license, you're consciously choosing to push aside some of your copyright and explicitly grant rights for others to do things with the audio, video, or text you've created and placed on the web. What that "stuff" is, of course, is up to you as the creator.
According to the Wikipedia page on Creative Commons Licenses, the attribution clause proved so popular that it's always on by default. So the Choose a License page essentially guides you through selecting the remaining three reuse clauses, with the following questions as a guide:
- Will you allow commercial uses of your work?
- Yes
- No
- Will you allow modifications of your work?
- Yes
- Yes, as long as others share alike
- No
As simple as the licenses may seem, it's a good idea to read through the things to think about section of the Creative Commons site before selecting one.
After some consideration, I've licensed our podcasts under the following Creative Commons license:
