---
title: "Creative Commons"
chunk: 1/3
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:48:53.809037+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Creative Commons (CC) is an American nonprofit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright licenses, known as Creative Commons licenses, free of charge to the public, to allow authors of creative works to communicate which rights they reserve and which rights they waive for the benefit of recipients or other creators. Content owners still maintain their copyright, but Creative Commons licenses give standard releases that replace the individual negotiations for specific rights between copyright owner (licensor) and licensee, that are necessary under an "all rights reserved" copyright management.
As of 2019, there were "nearly 2 billion" works licensed under the various Creative Commons licenses. Wikipedia and its sister projects use one of these licenses. According to a 2017 report, Flickr alone hosted over 415 million cc-licensed photos, along with around 49 million works in YouTube, 40 million works in DeviantArt and 37 million works in Wikimedia Commons. The licenses are also used by Stack Exchange, MDN, Internet Archive, Khan Academy, LibreTexts, OpenStax, MIT OpenCourseWare, WikiHow, TED, OpenStreetMap, GeoGebra, Doubtnut, Fandom, Arduino, ccmixter.org, and Ninjam, among others, and formerly by Unsplash, Pixabay, and Socratic.

== History ==
The organization was founded in 2001 by Lawrence Lessig, Hal Abelson, and Eric Eldred, with the support of Center for the Public Domain. The first article in a general interest publication about Creative Commons, written by Hal Plotkin, was published in February 2002. The first set of copyright licenses was released in December 2002 (original press release was dated 16th December, 2022). The founding management team that developed the licenses and built the Creative Commons infrastructure as it is known today included Molly Shaffer Van Houweling, Glenn Otis Brown, Neeru Paharia, and Ben Adida.
In 2002, Creative Commons was selected as the successor of the Open Content Project, a 1998 precursor project by David A. Wiley. Wiley subsequently joined Creative Commons as its director. The licenses published by the Open Content Project, the Open Content License and Open Publication License, were soon deprecated in favour of Creative Commons licenses. Aaron Swartz played a role in the early stages of Creative Commons, as did Matthew Haughey.

== Purpose and goal ==

Creative Commons has been an early participant in the copyleft movement, which seeks to provide alternative solutions to copyright, and has been dubbed "some rights reserved". Creative Commons has been credited with contributing to a re-thinking of the role of the "commons" in the Information Age. Their frameworks help individuals and groups distribute content more freely while still protecting themselves and their intellectual property rights legally.
According to its founder Lawrence Lessig, Creative Commons' goal is to counter the dominant and increasingly restrictive permission culture that limits artistic creation to existing or powerful creators. Lessig maintains that modern culture is dominated by traditional content distributors in order to maintain and strengthen their monopolies on cultural products such as popular music and popular cinema, and that Creative Commons can provide alternatives to these restrictions. In mid‑December 2020, Creative Commons released its strategy for the upcoming five years, which will focus more on three core of goals including advocacy, infrastructure innovation, and capacity building.

== Creative Commons network ==
Until April 2018, Creative Commons had over 100 affiliates working in over 75 jurisdictions to support and promote CC activities around the world. In 2018 this affiliate network has been restructured into a network organisation. The network no longer relies on affiliate organisation but on individual membership organised in Chapter.

=== Hungary ===
Creative Commons Hungary was the affiliated network of Creative Commons in Hungary. The non-profit organization was founded in Budapest, Hungary, in 2008 and was deleted from the official registry on February 6, 2017.

=== Japan ===
Creative Commons Japan (CC Japan/CCJP) is the affiliated network of Creative Commons in Japan. In 2003, the International University GLOCOM held a meeting for the CC Japan preparation. In March 2004, CC Japan was launched by GLOCOM University. CC Japan is the world's second CC affiliated network (the first is in America). In March 2006, CC Japan become the NPO and be in motion. In the same month, the CC founder Lawrence Lessig came to Japan to be one of the main holders of the open ceremony.
Within the same year, between May and June, different international events were held in Japan, including iSummit 06 and the first through third rounds of CCJP.
In February 2007, the ICC x ClipLife 15 second CM competition was held. In June, iSummit 07 was held. In July, the fourth CCJP was held. On July 25, Tokyo approved Nobuhiro Nakayama (中山信弘) to become the NGO chairman of CCJP. In 2008, Taipie ACIA joined CCJP. The main theme music which was chosen by CCJP was announced. In 2009, INTO INFINITY shown in Tokyo and Sapporo. iPhone held the shows with Audio Visual Mixer for INTO INFINITY. (Apple joint research and development with CCJP) In 2012, the 10th anniversary ceremony was held in Japan. In 2015, Creative Commons 4.0 and Creative Commons 0 were released in Japanese language.

=== South Korea ===
Creative Commons Korea (CC Korea) is the affiliated network of Creative Commons in South Korea. In March 2005, CC Korea was initiated by Jongsoo Yoon (in Korean: 윤종수), former Presiding Judge of Incheon District Court, as a project of Korea Association for Infomedia Law (KAFIL). The major Korean portal sites, including Daum and Naver, have been participating in the use of Creative Commons licences. In January 2009, the Creative Commons Korea Association was consequently founded as a non-profit incorporated association. Since then, CC Korea has been actively promoting the liberal and open culture of creation as well as leading the diffusion of Creative Common in the country.

Creative Commons Korea
Creative Commons Asia Conference 2010