What is the Commons Deed? What is the legal code? What does the html/metadata do?
Creative Commons licenses are expressed in three different formats: the Commons Deed (human-readable code), the Legal Code (lawyer-readable code); and the metadata (machine readable code). The Commons Deed is a summary of the key terms of the actual license (which is the Legal Code)—basically, what others can and cannot do with the work. Think of it as the user-friendly interface to the Legal Code beneath. This Deed itself has no legal value, and its contents do not appear in the actual license. The Legal Code is the actual license; a document designed to be enforced in a court of law. The metadata describes the key license elements that apply to a piece of content to enable discovery through CC-enabled search engines.
