What does CC BY-SA 4.0 allow?
CC BY-SA 4.0 lets you share and adapt the work, including for commercial use, provided you give attribution and release any adapted material under the same terms or a compatible license. The exact condition is ShareAlike: if you create an adaptation and share it, that adaptation must carry the BY-SA 4.0 license or one Creative Commons has officially designated as compatible. The decisive exception is that you do not trigger ShareAlike by sharing the work unchanged alongside other separate works in a collection. Record the creator, source URL, exact license and version. Then check whether your intended activity, sharing unchanged, adapting, combining, hits the ShareAlike trigger.
What Does CC BY-SA 4.0 Allow? The Permissions And The Condition
You may share the work in any medium or format, even for a commercial purpose, and you may create adaptations that include parts of the work. The one condition you must meet is ShareAlike. Under Creative Commons 4.0, ShareAlike means that if you produce Adapted Material, a translation, a remix, a film edit, a synchronized music track, and then distribute that material to the public, you must apply the same BY-SA 4.0 license or a license that Creative Commons has formally named as compatible.
ShareAlike does not apply when you merely reproduce the work as-is or include it as one component in a larger collection where each item keeps its own license. A DVD set of documentaries, each licensed BY-SA 4.0, does not trigger ShareAlike just because they are sold together. The condition fires only when you modify the work in a way that requires copyright permission, for example, translating a book, editing a video, or combining two BY-SA songs into a mashup.
ShareAlike, Adaptations And Compatible Licences
ShareAlike In Practice
When you adapt a CC BY-SA 4.0 work and share the adaptation, you must license your contribution under BY-SA 4.0 or a license on the official Creative Commons compatibility list. For 4.0, Creative Commons has listed one-way compatibility from BY-SA 4.0 to GPLv3 for adapted material. You may release an adaptation under GPLv3 instead. The reverse is not true. You cannot take a GPLv3 work and release it under BY-SA 4.0 under that compatibility statement. The compatibility list is short and controlled by Creative Commons. Do not assume that two different SA licenses are compatible; check the official list.
What Counts As An Adaptation Under 4.0?
Under the 4.0 legal code, translation is normally an adaptation. Synchronizing music with a moving image is expressly Adapted Material. Reproducing the work in a different format, for instance, converting a PDF to HTML, does not alone create Adapted Material. Cropping, excerpting, editing and combining may or may not create an adaptation depending on applicable copyright law. There is no universal boundary. If you are editing a photograph or cutting a scene from a video, decide based on your jurisdiction's copyright law whether the result is a derivative work. When in doubt, treat it as an adaptation and apply ShareAlike.
The One Exception To ShareAlike
ShareAlike is not triggered by sharing the unchanged work. Republish the entire original photograph, text or video on your commercial website, in a print ad, or in a broadcast, give attribution, and pay nothing. The condition only activates when you modify and share. This is the key practical difference between CC BY-SA 4.0 and CC BY-ND 4.0, which blocks sharing adaptations entirely.
| Action | Allowed? | Condition |
|---|---|---|
| Share the work unchanged | Yes | Attribution required |
| Share the work commercially | Yes | Attribution required |
| Create and share an adaptation | Yes | Attribution plus ShareAlike on the adaptation |
| Create an adaptation for private use only | Yes | No ShareAlike trigger (no sharing) |
| Include in a collection of separate works | Yes | Each work retains its own license; no SA trigger |
| Share an adaptation under a different license | No | Must use BY-SA 4.0 or a compatible license |
| Apply DRM that restricts downstream reuse | No | License prohibits effective technological measures that restrict others' rights |
Allowed Use And Disallowed Use: Two Examples
Allowed use: You find a CC BY-SA 4.0 photograph of a city skyline. Crop the image, overlay a title, include it in a blog post about urban planning, and publish the post. Attribute the photographer, state the work is under CC BY-SA 4.0, and indicate the changes you made. Because you created an adaptation and shared it, you must license your blog post's adaptation under CC BY-SA 4.0 or a compatible license. That is allowed.
Disallowed use: You take the same photograph, edit it into a new composite image, and sell prints of the composite under a standard copyright notice with "All Rights Reserved." You have not applied ShareAlike, and you have not chosen a compatible license. The terms are violated. Under the 4.0 termination clause, your rights terminate automatically from the date of breach. Cure the violation within 30 days of discovering it to get automatic reinstatement. You may still face liability for the period the breach existed.
The Single Thing That Most Often Goes Wrong
Reusers assume that a CC BY-SA 4.0 work can be combined freely with any other CC-licensed work because both are Creative Commons. That assumption fails. Two SA licenses may be incompatible. An NC work combined with an SA work may create a conflict. An ND work blocks adaptation entirely. Before you mix a BY-SA 4.0 photograph, a BY-NC-SA 4.0 song, and a CC0 sound effect into a single video, check whether the resulting adaptation can be licensed under one set of terms that satisfies every input. If it cannot, you cannot legally share the video. Build a compatibility matrix for every input, using the official Creative Commons compatibility list, before you start editing.
Common Questions
Can I use a CC BY-SA 4.0 work on my commercial website without paying?
Yes. The BY-SA 4.0 license permits commercial use. You do not need to pay the creator, nor do you need separate permission to use the work on a for-profit site. You must give attribution and, if you create an adaptation and share it, apply ShareAlike.
What happens if I break the ShareAlike condition?
Under the 4.0 legal code, your rights terminate automatically from the moment of the breach. They are automatically reinstated if you cure the violation within 30 days of discovering it, but you may still be liable for the period you were out of compliance. Older versions have different termination rules.
Can I use a CC BY-SA 4.0 work in a video game I sell?
If you use the work unchanged, yes, with attribution. If you adapt the work, such as editing images, remixing music, or integrating text into game assets, and share the game, the adaptation must carry BY-SA 4.0 or a compatible license. Check the official compatibility list; most game licenses are not on it, so you may need to apply BY-SA 4.0 to the game itself or use only unadapted works.
Does ShareAlike apply if I only keep the adaptation for myself?
No. ShareAlike is triggered only when Adapted Material is shared with the public. If you create a private adaptation, a cut-down document for your own reference, a cropped photo on your local hard drive, you do not need to license it under BY-SA. The condition activates the moment you distribute it.
Is CC BY-SA 4.0 compatible with other ShareAlike licenses?
Not automatically. Creative Commons maintains an official compatibility list. As of version 4.0, the only named compatibility is one-way from BY-SA 4.0 to GPLv3 for adapted material. Two different SA licenses, for example, BY-SA 3.0 and BY-SA 4.0, are not assumed compatible. Check the list before combining works under different ShareAlike versions.