Any material with a creatve Common license will have the license name and and a link attached to it. By looking at the Creative Commons license, you can determine what you are allowed to do with the Creative Commons material you want to use. There are six different license types. They are listed below from most to least permissive.

CC BY: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use.

CC BY includes the following elements:

BY  – Credit must be given to the creator

 

CC BY-SA: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms.

CC BY-SA includes the following elements:

BY  – Credit must be given to the creator

SA  – Adaptations must be shared under the same terms

 

CC BY-NC: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. 

It includes the following elements:

BY  – Credit must be given to the creator

NC  – Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted

 

CC BY-NC-SA: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms. 

CC BY-NC-SA includes the following elements:

BY  – Credit must be given to the creator

NC  – Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted

SA  – Adaptations must be shared under the same terms

 

CC BY-ND: This license allows reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use. 

CC BY-ND includes the following elements:

BY  – Credit must be given to the creator

ND  – No derivatives or adaptations of the work are permitted

 

CC BY-NC-ND: This license allows reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. 

CC BY-NC-ND includes the following elements:

BY  – Credit must be given to the creator

NC  – Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted

ND  – No derivatives or adaptations of the work are permitted

The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication 

CC0 (aka CC Zero) is a public dedication tool, which allows creators to give up their copyright and put their works into the worldwide public domain. CC0 allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, with no conditions.

 

"About CC Licenses" by Creative Commons. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0

If you are adapting a single BY or a BY-NC licensed work, you must license your adaption with a license that includes all the limitations of the original license. For BY and BY-NC material that has been adapted, you are allowed to use more restricted licenses than the original as long as you respect the original limitations. For example, you can add a NC limitations to the adaptions of a BY work.  However, if the single work you are adapting is licensed by a BY-SA or BY-NC-SA license, you must share you adapted work with the same license as the original. If the work has a license with an ND restriction, you can only adapt for private use and cannot distribute it.

If you are adapting and combining multiple works, you must select a license for your new work that is compatible with all the creative works used in your adaption. With few exceptions, you must you the most restrictive license of any of the works you adapted. For example, if one work you adapted uses a NC license, your adaption must be licensed NC and used you may not use your adaption for commercial purposes, even if other works in the adaptions would allow for commercial use. The most important exception is when adapting SA licensed material. You cannot remix different works with different SA licenses. Because a SA license requires you to share it using the same license, it is impossible to create a license for your adaptions that fullfills the requirements of two different SA license. 

To see how all the different license interact, go to CC License Compatibility Chart

All Creative Commons licenses require attribution if you reproduce, reuse, adapt or remix the material. At its simplest, attribution is Title, Author, Source, License.

Title - What is the name of the material?

If a title was provided for the material, include it. Sometimes a title is not provided; in that case, don't worry about it.

Author - Who owns the material?

Name the author or authors of the material in question. Sometimes, the licensor may want you to give credit to some other entity, like a company or pseudonym. In rare cases, the licensor may not want to be attributed at all. In all of these cases, just do what they request.

Source - Where can I find it?

Since you somehow accessed the material, you know where to find it. Provide the source of the material so others can, too. Since we live in the age of the Internet, this is usually a URL or hyperlink where the material resides.

License - How can I use it?

You are obviously using the material for free thanks to the CC license, so make note of it. Don't just say the material is Creative Commons, because that says nothing about how the material can actually be used. Remember that there are six different CC licenses; which one is the material under? Name and provide a link to it, eg. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ for CC BY.

→ If the licensor included a license notice with more information, include that as well.

Lastly, is there anything else I should know before I use it?

When you accessed the material originally did it come with any copyright notices; a notice that refers to the disclaimer of warranties; or a notice of previous modifications? (That was a mouthful!) Because that kind of legal mumbo jumbo is actually pretty important to potential users of the material. So best practice is to just retain all of that stuff by copying and pasting such notices into your attribution. Don't make it anymore complicated than it is -- just pass on any info you think is important.

→ Regarding modifications: Don't forget to note if you modified the work yourself (example). If you are at the point where you are creating and licensing derivative works (example), see Marking your work with a CC license.

"Best practices for attribution-Title, Author, Source, License" by Creative Commons. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0

Creative Commons doesn’t replace copyright law. Because it is embedded within copyright law, Fair Use still applies to Creative Commons licenses.  Fair use allows a creator to adapt and use CC licensed works in a way otherwise limited by the CC license. For example, a No Derivative Works(ND) license would not prevent a fair use adaption of a work.