Creative Commons Licences are pre-prepared licences intended to help copyright holders distribute their work and define how it can be used by others. It enables the the author to retain their rights, particularly the copyright of their work.

Creative Commons has produced a number of licences which authors can take ‘as given’ or adapt to their requirements. The author attaches their chosen licence to the work and the licence becomes the set of rules that the author expects the copiers to observe when they copy the work.

The licences tend to be more permissive than licences from commercial publishers, and the basic idea is to permit, and almost encourage, the copying of the works as long as due acknowledgement is given to the original author as its source.