The licences allow users to reuse, remix and share the content legally.
Offering your work under a Creative Commons licence does not mean giving up your copyright. It means permitting users to make use of your material in various ways, but with certain conditions.
There are six standardised CC licences- listed from most to least permissive here:
CC BY: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use.
CC BY includes the following elements:
BY 
– Credit must be given to the creator
CC BY-SA: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms.
CC BY-SA includes the following elements:
BY – Credit must be given to the creator
SA 
– Adaptations must be shared under the same terms
CC BY-NC: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator.
It includes the following elements:
BY – Credit must be given to the creator
NC 
– Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted
CC BY-NC-SA: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms.
CC BY-NC-SA includes the following elements:
BY – Credit must be given to the creator
NC – Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted
SA – Adaptations must be shared under the same terms
CC BY-ND: This license allows reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use.
CC BY-ND includes the following elements:
BY – Credit must be given to the creator
ND 
– No derivatives or adaptations of the work are permitted
CC BY-NC-ND: This license allows reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator.
CC BY-NC-ND includes the following elements:
BY – Credit must be given to the creator
NC – Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted
ND – No derivatives or adaptations of the work are permitted
The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication
CC0 (aka CC Zero) is a public dedication tool, which allows creators to give up their copyright and put their works into the worldwide public domain. CC0 allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, with no conditions.
Creative Commons License Chooser : This tool will assist you in choosing a CC License that suits your work
Current and previous versions of licenses
The current suite of version 4.0 international licenses were released in 2013. All previous licence versions remain actively in use, but when licensing a new work, we recommend version 4.0.
This guide has been adapted in part from:
"Open Education Resources" by University of South Australia Library is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0