Rights guidance for authors
| Site: | OpenLearn Create |
| Course: | CREATE Toolkit |
| Book: | Rights guidance for authors |
| Printed by: | Guest user |
| Date: | Wednesday, 8 April 2026, 9:56 AM |
Description
Guidance about copyright.
Basics of copyright
Copyright is automatic and protects your work from unauthorised usage.
There is no copyright in:
- an idea
- factual information
- data
- headlines
- research.
The length of copyright depends on the nature of the resource. Copyright laws are complex and there can be multiple layers.
The creator of a work is automatically entitled to moral rights, which include the right to:
- be identified as the author/creator
- object to derogatory treatment of their work
- privacy of certain photographs and films
- object to false attribution of a work.
Creative Commons licences
When you add an image or piece of AV material – for example, a course image – you will be asked to choose the appropriate licence from a drop-down list:
- All rights reserved
- Public domain
- Creative Commons - 4.0 International
- Creative Commons - NoDerivatives 4.0 International
- Creative Commons - NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
- Creative Commons - NonCommercial 4.0 International
- Creative Commons - NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International
- Creative Commons - ShareAlike 4.0 International
These licences are explained in the following table.
| Licence | Also known as | Details |
|---|---|---|
| All rights reserved | – | The author of work is asserting they hold all the copyright to the work and cannot be used without the author’s permission. |
| Public domain | CC0 | Works are now out of copyright and others can reuse the work without the need to ask for permission. Others can distribute, remix, tweak and build on your work, even commercially. |
| Creative Commons - 4.0 International | CC BY | Others can distribute, remix, tweak and build on the material, even commercially, if they credit the original creation. This is most open licence available. |
| Creative Commons - NoDerivatives 4.0 International | CC BY-ND | Others can redistribute unchanged and attributed to the creator, commercially and non-commercially. |
| Creative Commons - NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International | CC BY-NC-ND | Others can only download and share if they credit the creator, but they cannot change it or use it commercially. |
| Creative Commons - NonCommercial 4.0 International | CC BY-NC | Others can remix, tweak and build upon the material non-commercially. Their new works must be acknowledged and be non-commercial, but they don’t have to use the same licence terms for derivative works. |
| Creative Commons - NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International | CC BY-NC-SA | Others can remix, tweak and build upon the material non-commercially if they credit the creator and license their new creations under the identical terms. |
| Creative Commons - ShareAlike 4.0 International | CC BY-SA | Others can distribute, remix, tweak and build on your work, even commercially, if they credit you for original creation and license their new creations under identical terms. This licence allows re-users to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator; commercial use; and remixed, adapted or material built upon the original must be licensed under identical terms. |
More information about creative commons licences can be found on the Creative Commons website.