Copyright: An overview

Creative Commons (CC) is an internationally active non-profit organisation that works to make it easier to share, reuse, re-purpose and remix creative material. It does this by providing free licences that let creators give permission in advance for certain uses of their material.

Every time a work is created, such as when a journal article is written or a photograph taken, that work is automatically protected by copyright. Copyright prevents others from using the work in certain ways, such as copying the work or putting the work online.

With CC licences, creators can tell the world that they’re happy for their work to be copied, shared or even remixed. When a creator releases their work under a CC licence, you know what you can and can’t do with the work.

As a result, you can freely copy, share and sometimes modify and remix CC material without having to worry about copyright, as long as you follow the licence.

Reference: Creative Commons Australia. What is Creative Commons? Retrieved from http://creativecommons.org.au/learn/fact-sheets

For more information please see the following link:

About the Licences and Adding a Licence to your work

What a licence means, and how to re-use a work

Creative Commons Kiwi by Creative Commons Aotearoa New Zealand is licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 New Zealand (CC BY) licence. The video was made with support from InternetNZ and is a project of the Royal Society of New Zealand. Produced by Mohawk Media. Retrieved from: https://creativecommons.org/about/videos/creative-commons-kiwi/