Creative Commons is a powerful tool for religious professionals. Sermons, newsletters, religious education curriculum, photographs, videos, and even music can all be licensed with Creative Commons. Creative Commons allows creators to retain copyright and provide reasonable limitations on usage while also providing the space for the materials to be shared and used widely.
Anyone creating copyrighted material can use Creative Commons. This can be both individuals and organizations. In work for hire situations, in which someone created copyrighted material as part of their job, the employer owns the copyright and the employer must decide to use a Creative Commons license. For religious professionals, who retains what copyright can sometimes be quite complicated and is often negotiated as part of your employment. Broadly speaking, for material such as such as sermons and articles, copyright remains with the religious professional for creations. Other types of material, like newsletters (excluding any article written by religious professionals), copyright often remains with the congregation.
Anything eligible for copyright can be licensed with Creative Commons licenses. To be eligible, the work must be
Facts and ideas in and of themselves are not eligible for copyright. For for information, see the "Copyright" tab above.
If your work qualifies for copyright, the next step is to select a license.
When using the license chooser, the chooser will generate an automatic attribution you can apply to your work.
Image: "Marking your work with a CC license" Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
For applying a license in other mediums, such as print, video, audio, or presentations, see the guide "Marking your work with a CC license.
All Creative Commons licenses build upon these four elements. A creator uses these elements to create licenses that fits their needs
“License Element Logos” by Creative Commons. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
Not all Creative Commons licenses are the same. As you decide what license to select, the infographic below can help you see how different licenses are related to each other and how their openness can vary substantially.
Image: Creative Commons License Spectrum. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
Except where otherwise noted, content on this Library Guide is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Meadville Lombard Wiggin Library
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