Creative Commons worked for more than two years to develop the next generation of CC licenses \u2014 the version 4.0 CC license suite. The new licenses are more user-friendly and more internationally robust than ever before.<\/p>\n
We made dozens of improvements to the licenses. Most will go unnoticed by many CC licensors and licensees, but some of them deserve particular attention.<\/p>\n
For a much more in-depth rundown of the decisions reflected in 4.0, visit the 4.0 page on the Creative Commons wiki<\/a>.<\/p>\n In the past six years, Creative Commons has worked with hundreds of volunteers around the world – literally, some of the best minds in copyright law and open licensing on the planet – to translate and adapt the 3.0 and earlier licenses to local laws in over 60 jurisdictions (what we call \u201cporting\u201d<\/a>). In the process, we\u2019ve learned a lot about how our licenses work internationally and how they\u2019re impacted by the nuances of copyright law in various jurisdictions.<\/p>\n We drew on this experience in the process of developing 4.0. We\u2019ve worked closely with our wide international network of affiliates and countless other experts and stakeholders to make 4.0 the most internationally enforceable set of CC licenses to date. The 4.0 licenses are ready-to-use around the world, without porting<\/a>.<\/p>\n The new licenses have improved terminology that\u2019s better understood worldwide. With the release of 4.0, we\u2019re also introducing official translations of the CC licenses, so that users of CC-licensed material around the world can read and understand the complete licenses in their local languages.<\/p>\n Other rights beyond copyright can complicate the reuse of CC-licensed material. To the extent that those rights are not addressed directly in a copyright license, the situation for users of works can be even more confusing. Version 4.0 addresses this challenge through an open-ended but carefully tailored license grant that identifies categories of rights that could (if not licensed) interfere with reuse of the material. Accounting for these and other unenumerated rights will more fully enable users of CC-licensed works to use the work as they expect and as intended by licensors.<\/p>\n In particular, the fact that sui generis<\/em> database rights<\/a> are not explicitly covered by the 3.0 unported licenses<\/a> has led to confusion in jurisdictions that recognize those rights. Version 4.0 removes any doubt, pulling applicable sui generis<\/em> rights squarely within the scope of the license<\/a> unless explicitly excluded by the licensor. It also allows database providers to use the CC licenses to explicitly license those rights<\/a>.<\/p>\n The 4.0 license suite uniformly and explicitly waives moral rights<\/a> held by the licensor where possible to the limited extent necessary<\/a> to enable reuse of the content in the manner intended by the license. Publicity, privacy, and personality rights<\/a> held by the licensor are expressly waived to the same limited extent<\/a>. While many understand these rights to be waived when held by the licensor in 3.0 and earlier versions, version 4.0\u2019s treatment makes the intended outcome clear.<\/p>\n Version 4.0 includes a slight change to attribution requirements<\/a>, designed to better reflect accepted practices. The licenses explicitly permit licensees to satisfy the attribution requirement with a link to a separate page for attribution information. This was already common practice on the internet and possible under earlier versions of the licenses, and Version 4.0 alleviates any uncertainty about its use.<\/p>\n Version 3.0 included a provision allowing a licensor to request that a licensee remove the attribution from an adaptation<\/a>, if she did not want her name associated with it. Version 4.0 expands that provision to apply not only to adaptations but also to verbatim reproductions of a work. Licenses now account specifically for situations where licensors wish to disassociate themselves from uses of their works they object to, even if their work hasn\u2019t been modified or published in a collection with other works.<\/p>\nA more global license<\/h2>\n
Rights outside the scope of copyright<\/h2>\n
Common-sense attribution<\/h2>\n
Enabling more anonymity, when desired<\/h2>\n
30-day window to correct license violations<\/h2>\n