17 Three Layers of the CC Licenses
Licenses are built using a three layer design
- The legal code is the base layer. This contains the “lawyer-readable” terms and conditions that are legally enforceable in court. Take a minute and scan through the legal code of CC BY to see how it is structured.
- The commons deeds are the most well-known layer of the licenses. These are the web pages that lay out the key license terms in so-called “human-readable” terms. The deeds are not legally enforceable but instead summarize the legal code.
- The final layer of the license design recognizes that software plays a critical role in the creation, copying, discovery, and distribution of works. In order to make it easy for websites and web services to know when a work is available under a Creative Commons license, we provide a “machine readable” version of the license—a summary of the key freedoms granted and obligations imposed written into a format that applications, search engines, and other kinds of technology can understand. We developed a standardized way to describe licenses that software can understand called CC Rights Expression Language (CC REL) to accomplish this. When this metadata is attached to CC licensed works, someone searching for a CC licensed work using a search engine (e.g., Google advanced search) can more easily discover CC licensed works.
Important to Know:
CC license basics
All Creative Commons licenses have many important features in common. Every CC license ensures licensors get credit for their work. CC licenses work around the world and last as long as applicable copyright lasts (because they are built on copyright) and as long as the user complies with the license. At a minimum, every license helps rights holders (we call them “licensors” when they use CC tools) retain copyright while allowing others to copy and distribute their work in unadapted form for noncommercial purposes. These common features serve as the baseline, on top of which licensors can choose to grant additional permissions when deciding how they want their work to be used.
“Anatomy of a CC License/ Sub Unit 3 by Creative Commons CC BY 4.0