Creative Commons (CC) licenses are the foundation of knowledge dissemination and reusability. But the technical aspects of these licenses tend to confuse authors. Add to this the many different types of CC licenses and the specifics of each, and this confusion only increases.
In this article, we will explain CC licenses in simple terms for authors, highlighting how these licenses function in the context of open access (OA) publishing and preprint posting. We will also cover which licenses offer the most control and flexibility and how to protect your intellectual property.
What are Creative Commons licenses?
Creative Commons licenses are legal frameworks that allow the public to access and reuse scholarly content whilst reserving other rights. They are the foundation of scholarly open access publishing, enabling authors to widely share their research online. Importantly, the legal framework of a CC license ensures that appropriate accreditation is always given to the author. Additionally, it serves to protect authors from experiencing misuse of their work in a variety of contexts.
In academic contexts, CC licenses are typically applied to OA journal articles, scholarly monographs and edited books, and open educational resources. They are also applied to preprints, which we will cover in more detail soon.
There are six main types of CC license. These include:
- Attribution (CC BY);
- Attribution ShareAlike (CC BY–SA);
- Attribution-NoDerivs (CC BY-ND);
- Attribution-NonCommerical (CC BY-NC);
- Attribution-NonCommerical-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA);
- Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND).
As we have briefly touched on, these different types of CC licences and their specific definitions and abbreviations can cause much confusion for authors looking to choose an OA licensing agreement.
So, what do these licenses mean and, more importantly, how do you go about choosing one?
Understanding the terms
The six main types of Creative Commons licenses contain a lot of technical information between them, with abbreviated terms indicating the specific conditions of each license. Let’s start by breaking these down.
- Attribution, or “BY”, indicates that others can distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon the work, even in a commercial context, so long as the author is credited.
- ShareAlike, or “SA”, indicates that others can only share the work using the same license as the one originally chosen by the author.
- NoDerivatives, or “ND”, indicates that others can remix, transform, or build upon the work, but any modified version cannot be shared.
- NonCommercial, or “NC”, indicates that the work may not be used for commercial purposes in any form.
As we can see in the previous section, these terms can be combined to make the six unique CC licenses. But which of these six licenses are best suited for authors?
Which Creative Commons license should you use?
This question is largely dependent on the purposes you have for your work. For example, stricter licensing conditions may be required if you are working with sensitive material. These conditions restrict others from being able to modify or reinterpret your work in a potentially misleading way.
Generally, most authors want maximum visibility and impact for their research. The most flexible and open of all the CC licenses is the CC BY license, and its permissions allow for increased engagement with your work. The CC BY license is the one most aligned with open practices and best suited to the nature of global research dissemination.
For more information on the most popular CC licenses and how they compare, see our article on CC BY vs CC BY-ND vs CC BY-NC-ND.
Protecting your intellectual property
Maximising the visibility and impact of your research is important. But so is ensuring that you retain control over your intellectual property (IP).
The most straightforward way to do this would be to publish your scholarly article as open access using a Creative Commons license. Some journals may use copyright transfer agreements (CTAs) to take control of an author’s work and become the legal owner, allowing them to reproduce, distribute, translate, and archive the article as they see fit. Most OA journals, however, do not use CTAs. Authors retain control over their IP through the conditions of the CC licenses.
For more information on copyright, licensing, and platforms you can use to check a journal’s open access publication and compliance conditions, see our article on how to protect your intellectual property as an author.
Preprints and Creative Commons licensing
Open practices, including licensing, are foundational to the preprint process. With open access and preprint posting increasingly favoured amongst researchers and in some cases mandated by official policies such as the 2025 Gates Foundation OA Policy, open practices continue to grow and with it the need for preprint policy frameworks that seek to standardise the use of licenses for preprints.
One framework also established in 2025 that seeks to do so is the Creative Commons and ASAPbio Preprint Policy Framework. The policy outlines six target components that standardise preprint licensing frameworks and posting procedures. These include:
- Preprint Requirement: Preprints are either required or strongly recommended to be submitted to a publicly available server that assigns a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) and is free for both author and reader to use.
- Author’s Copyright: Author’s retain copyright of their work (unless it is waived through a CC0 public domain dedication).
- CC BY Licensing: A CC BY license is strongly recommended for preprints.
- Submission Timeline: Preprints are posted to a server before or at the same time as submission to a peer-reviewed journal.
- Funder acknowledgement: Institutional affiliations, funders, and/or grants are acknowledged in preprint’s acknowledgements section and/or its accompanying metadata.
- Availability Statement: An availability statement that identifies where the associated data, code, software, protocols, and materials can be accessed or found is required or strongly recommended.
In 2026, Creative Commons and ASAPbio partnered with the Gates Foundation to further expand the development and adoption of the framework.
Preprints.org: supporting open, author-centred licensing
Preprints.org is a multidisciplinary preprint server supporting open access and early access to pioneering scholarly material. It is committed to helping further establish open practices and licensing in the context of preprint posting.
All preprints are posted with a CC BY 4.0 license. This guarantees that you retain copyright and receive credit for your work. At the same time, anyone is allowed read and use the contents. The “4.0” refers to the fact that this is the fourth and latest version of the CC BY license. The version exhibits clearer language and smoother use across different international legal systems.
To find out more about submitting to Preprints.org, see our guide.