Answered By: Ask a Librarian
Last Updated: Mar 15, 2021    

Creative Commons licenses give everyone from individual creators to large institutions a standardized way to grant the public permission to use their creative work under copyright law. With CC licenses, the author retains copyright. The CC licenses options provided by publishers regarding the open access publishing of a paper usually include CC-BY, CC-BY-NC and CC-BY-NC-ND.

 CC-BY: 

Allows users to copy, distribute and transmit an article, adapt the article as long as the author is attributed. The CC BY license permits commercial and non-commercial reuse.

 CC-BY-NC: 

Allows users to copy, distribute and transmit an article, adapt the article as long as the author is attributed and the article is not used for commercial purposes.

 CC-BY-NC-ND: 

Allows users to copy, distribute and transmit an article as long as the author is attributed, the article is not used for commercial purposes, and the work is not modified or adapted in any way.

While publishers sometimes allow authors to select from different CC license options, some funding agencies or institutions who has open access agreements with publishers have specific requirements regarding which option to choose. Authors should consult the requirements of the funding bodies when making the selection.