Most important points

• Creative Commons (CC) licenses are standard license agreements with which authors can release their works for public use – under certain conditions.

• There are different types of CC licenses, e.g. CC BY (Attribution), CC BY-SA (Attribution + Share Alike), CC BY-ND (No Derivative Works Allowed), CC BY-NC (Non-Commercial Use) and combinations thereof. Each license is clearly identifiable by abbreviation.

• CC licenses enable start-ups to use content such as images, music, texts or videos in a legally secure manner without having to ask each individual author for permission – as long as the license conditions are adhered to (e.g. naming the author, no commercial use in the case of NC licenses).

• In legal terms, CC licenses are basically pre-formulated contracts: The author grants the general public certain rights of use. Anyone who uses the work implicitly agrees to the conditions.

• CC-licensed content is not automatically “free of copyright ” – it is protected, but the author allows its use. If the conditions are violated (e.g. lack of attribution), the license expires and the use is then unauthorized.

• Founders can use CC licenses for their own works to increase their reach or promote open source projects. For example, software can be licensed under CC0 (public domain waiver) or CC BY to allow others to reuse it.

• Important: Not all content on the Internet marked with “CC0” is really in the public domain; you should make sure that the person who places a work under CC is actually the rights holder. Otherwise you may find yourself in a gray area.

Introduction

Content licensing is crucial in the digital age. Creative Commons licenses have established themselves as a practical tool to facilitate the handling of copyrighted works. Instead of having to painstakingly license each clip, photo or music track individually, CC licenses allow for standardized release. The slogan of Creative Commons is “Some Rights Reserved” (as opposed to “All rights reserved”). This means that authors retain their copyrights, but allow anyone to use the work under certain conditions. For start-ups that need images for their website, background music for videos or icons/fonts, for example, CC content is often a cost-effective and legal source – provided that the respective license rules are followed.

The different CC license types

Creative Commons provides a modular system of licenses. Creators can choose which types of use they want to allow. This results in six main licenses plus the special cases CC0 and Public Domain Mark. The core components are

• BY (attribution): The user must name the author or licensor, in the manner requested by the licensor. Almost all CC licenses contain this condition, recognizable by “CC BY…”.

• NC (Non-Commercial): Use for non-commercial purposes only. Companies or monetized projects may not use content with NC without further ado.

• ND (No Derivatives): No adaptations or modifications of the work may be distributed. The work may only be used and distributed unchanged.

• SA (Share Alike / Distribution under the same conditions): If you edit the work or incorporate it into your own project, you must in turn publish the resulting complete work under the same license. This is the “copyleft” clause, similar to the GPL in the software sector.

The most common licenses are:

• CC BY: Use permitted, editing permitted, also commercial – condition: Attribution.

• CC BY-SA: Like CC BY, but edits must be distributed under the same license. Widely used, e.g. Wikipedia content is licensed under CC BY-SA.

• CC BY-NC: Use permitted, but only non-commercial, editing permitted, in each case with attribution. This is tricky for start-ups, as their use is usually considered commercial (even a blog on a commercial website could be considered commercial use).

• CC BY-NC-SA: Non-commercial use, attribution, same license for editing.

• CC BY-ND: commercial use permitted and attribution, but no changes to the work permitted.

• CC BY-NC-ND: very restrictive – you may only use the work unchanged and non-commercially, with attribution.

There is also CC0, which does not mean “Rights Reserved”, but “No Rights Reserved”. CC0 is de facto a waiver of copyrights (as far as legally possible) and places a work in the public domain. This means that the author waives all exploitation rights and the work can be used without attribution and without restriction. In Germany, the concept of a complete waiver of rights is tricky (moral rights remain unaffected), but CC0 is practically treated as a public domain equivalent.

How does licensing work in practice?

When an author places their work under a CC license, for example on their website or on platforms such as Flickr, YouTube, SoundCloud, etc., this is an offer to conclude a contract: anyone who uses the work automatically agrees to the license terms. This creates a contract between the author and user, albeit free of charge. The author grants extensive rights of use; in return, the user undertakes to comply with the conditions (BY, NC, etc.).

For the startup as a user, this means that if you want to use a photo with CC BY-SA, for example, you must state the author’s name in the legal notice or directly with the image, the title of the work (if specified), the license (e.g. “CC BY-SA 4.0”) and ideally a link to the license description. This sounds complicated, but it can be easily standardized. For example, many users write under a photo they use: “Photo: Max Beispiel, licensed under CC BY 4.0” and link “CC BY 4.0” to the official license website. This fulfills the condition of attribution.

If you do not adhere to the conditions – for example, if you forget to give attribution or use an NC image in a commercial flyer – then you lose the right of use. The CC license stipulates that the license automatically expires in the event of a violation. You are then considered to have used the image without any permission and the author can demand warnings or compensation. In newer CC versions (4.0), however, there is a “cure period”: If you notice the infringement and correct it within 30 days (e.g. add a forgotten copyright notice), the license comes back to life. This is a fair deal for users.

Advantages for start-ups – use of CC content

CC-licensed materials can be worth their weight in gold, especially in the areas of marketing, media production and web design. Instead of paying money for every stock photo or icon set, you can search for CC works on platforms such as Unsplash, Pixabay, Wikimedia Commons, Openclipart or Free Music Archive. It is important to pay attention to the respective license:

• Example 1: A startup wants a piece of background music for a product video. It finds a nice track under CC BY 4.0, which it can use, including on YouTube (which can be monetized, but CC BY allows commercial use). It must mention the artist name and license in the credits or description. This is easy to do.

• Example 2: You find a photo under CC BY-NC 4.0 that would be perfect for the new landing page. Be careful here: The landing page is for business purposes – this is commercial use. This license does not allow that. The image should therefore not simply be used. You would either have to ask the author for separate permission or choose a different image.

• Example 3: A developer wants to use icons from a set that is under CC BY-SA and later distribute his modified icons. With BY-SA, he undertakes to offer his set again under CC BY-SA. This is usually fine for open source-friendly projects, but a startup that prefers to keep its materials proprietary would have to be careful here.

CC content saves costs and time. Nevertheless, a certain amount of documentation is required: You should note exactly which work you got from where and under which license, and keep the source details to hand. In this way, you can keep an overview and prove at any time that you had the rights (as long as you adhered to the conditions).

Place your own works under CC

A company or founder can benefit from CC not only as a user, but also as an author. For example, if you have advertising material, articles, blog posts or self-developed content, you can consider placing these under a CC license to generate reach. A startup in the education sector could, for example, publish teaching material under CC BY-SA so that it can be reused by schools – this raises awareness and looks appealing.

Other licenses are more common in the software sector (open source software has its own license models such as MIT, Apache, GPL), but CC licenses may be suitable for accompanying material, documentation or media relating to the product.

It is important to remember that once a CC license has been granted, it can no longer be revoked unilaterally. Although you remain the author, the rights granted are valid indefinitely (theoretically until the end of the protection period, i.e. usually 70 years after the author’s death). You can place future versions of your work under a different license, but people can continue to use what is already out there under CC in accordance with this license. For many people this is not a problem, but for some applications you should think carefully about whether you really want to allow everyone (including competitors) to use certain things.

Legal classification

Creative Commons licenses operate within the framework of copyright contract law. In Germany, they are generally valid as long as no immoral or illegal content is agreed. The standard texts of CC are internationally harmonized and have also been legally translated into German so that they are understandable and legally consistent.

Users should note that CC licenses do not guarantee that the work is free of third-party rights. For example, a photo could be CC-licensed, but the persons depicted have personal rights that are not automatically transferred. Or a song contains a sample of another song – the CC license of the entire track does not cover the rights to this sample if the DJ has used it without permission. In such cases, you can get into trouble despite CC. Common sense is therefore recommended: only obtain content from trustworthy platforms and, if in doubt, research whether the work really comes from the stated author.

Conclusion

Creative Commons licenses are a powerful tool for promoting the exchange of creative content. They open doors for start-ups and creatives to use content cost-effectively and raise their own profile. It is important to pay close attention to the respective license conditions – in particular the obligation to attribute and restrictions such as “non-commercial”. If you adhere to these rules, CC works offer a wealth of possibilities without having to pay expensive license fees or overcome legal hurdles. CC stands for a pragmatic middle ground between copyright and public domain, which works very well in practice, provided that both sides – creators and users – treat it fairly.