What is the Creative Commons License?
Creative Commons is a group founded by lawyers in academia that has defined alternative licenses whereby you can release some of the rights you are automatically assigned by copyright law. The most open license is the Attribution license. With this you receive the greatest exposure for your work, since it allows your work to be distributed anywhere or modified to someone’s specific needs, while still giving you credit for its creation. Other Creative Commons license choices specify whether you allow commercial use of the work, whether you allow modifications of the work, and whether you allow derivative works to be created based on your work. There’s a Creative Commons form built into DSpace that allows you to identify the license to be used with the item you are submitting, so people can know what they’re allowed to do with your work. This form is optional in DSpace, and you can skip it if you wish to retain your full copyright.
