Patent-Grant-Limited on Your License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

CC BY 4.0 is Creative Commons’ most permissive licence that still requires attribution. Anyone may share, remix, adapt, and build on the material for any purpose, including commercial, provided they give appropriate credit, link to the licence, and indicate if changes were made.

It is a good default for text, images, video, and datasets when you want the widest possible reuse but still want recognition. For pure databases in the EU, ODbL-1.0 addresses sui generis rights CC BY does not fully cover.

Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

CC BY-SA 4.0 is the copyleft Creative Commons licence. Anyone may share, remix, adapt, and build on the material for any purpose, including commercial, provided they give appropriate credit and license their adaptations under the same licence or a CC-approved compatible licence.

It is the right choice for content that should stay in the commons even as it is remixed. Wikipedia uses CC BY-SA 4.0 in combination with the GNU Free Documentation License.

Creative Commons Zero 1.0 Universal

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

CC0-1.0 is a public-domain dedication. The author waives, to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, all copyright and related rights — and in jurisdictions where waiver is not possible, grants an equivalent unconditional licence.

CC0 does not grant patent or trademark rights. For software, the FSF considers CC0 free and GPL-compatible, but OSI has not formally approved it.

For content, media, and data, CC0 is the most permissive option. For software specifically, many projects prefer MIT or the Unlicense.

End-User License Agreement

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

An End-User License Agreement (EULA) is a binding contract between a software vendor and an end user. Commercial software almost always ships with one. A typical EULA covers: licence grant (usually a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use), restrictions (no reverse engineering, no redistribution, no removing copyright notices), ownership, warranty disclaimer, limitation of liability, termination, and governing law.

The EULA published on this site is a starting point only. Jurisdictions differ on what is enforceable. Have a lawyer licensed in your jurisdiction review the EULA before you ship.