Can I withdraw a CC license from someone who already has a copy?

No. The license is irrevocable. You may stop distributing the work or offer it under other terms, but you cannot withdraw the license from people who already received it while complying with its terms.

If I use a CC license, am I giving away my copyright?

No. You retain copyright while granting the public specified permissions in advance. You can also dual-license: offer the same work under a CC license and also under separate commercial terms.

Can a reuser impose additional legal terms or DRM on my CC-licensed work?

No. A recipient may not impose additional legal terms or effective technological measures that restrict another recipient's exercise of the licensed rights. Platforms with exclusive sublicensing terms or download restrictions can therefore create a conflict.

What happens if someone breaches the license?

Rights under a 4.0 license terminate automatically. They are automatically reinstated from the date the violation is cured if cured within 30 days after the violator discovers it. Cure does not erase possible liability for the period of violation.

Licensing your work

Licensing your work with Creative Commons attaches a standard, machine-readable permission to your copyright so the public knows exactly what they can do without asking. The copyright stays with you. You grant a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, irrevocable license for the term of the copyright. The condition to state plainly: the license applies only where copyright or similar rights require permission. Exceptions such as fair use or fair dealing operate independently. If a use is authorised by one of those, the license conditions do not apply.

The decisive exception is third-party material you do not control. Confirm joint authors, employment ownership, commissioned-work terms, performer rights, samples and any third-party inclusions before you apply a license to a work that contains them. The safest next step: open the official Creative Commons chooser, select version 4.0 International, and produce a marking notice that identifies the work and creator, names and links the exact license and version, links the source where useful, and clearly excludes material not covered. Route yourself by what you are trying to do. The ten guides beneath this hub start at each specific question.

Current License Suite: Six 4.0 International licenses, all requiring attribution. The six are: BY, BY-SA, BY-ND, BY-NC, BY-NC-SA, BY-NC-ND.
Public Domain Tools: CC0 is a public-domain dedication with a fallback license. The Public Domain Mark changes no rights; it marks material believed free of known copyright restrictions worldwide. Neither is one of the six licenses.
What Version To Use: Use version 4.0 for any new license unless a specific, informed reason requires an older version or a jurisdiction-specific port. A license already attached to someone else's work cannot be unilaterally upgraded.
What The License Covers: Only copyright and similar rights such as sui generis database rights in 4.0. It does not license patent or trademark rights. Moral, privacy and personality rights are handled only to the limited extent stated in the legal code.

What The Four Conditions Actually Do

Attribution

Attribution requires a reuser to retain whatever you supply: the creator and designated attribution parties, a copyright notice, a notice referring to the license, a warranty disclaimer, and a URI or hyperlink to the work where reasonably practicable. They must link or refer to the license and indicate modifications, retaining earlier modification notices. Version 4.0 does not separately require the work's title, though older versions may. If you request it, attribution information must be removed where reasonably practicable. Attribution must not imply endorsement.

ShareAlike

ShareAlike triggers when Adapted Material is shared, not when unchanged material merely appears beside other separate works in a collection. The adapter applies the license named by the applicable SA clause or an officially designated compatible license. Do not assume two SA licenses are compatible. The official compatibility list controls. It currently names one-way compatibility from BY-SA 4.0 to GPLv3 for adapted material. This does not turn a CC license into a software license.

NonCommercial

NonCommercial in version 4.0 means not primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or monetary compensation. The identity of the user, business, nonprofit, school or individual, does not decide the issue by itself. Advertising, sponsorship, fundraising, internal business use and mixed purposes require context. Do not invent a bright-line rule. If the planned use has material commercial risk, get separate permission or local legal advice.

NoDerivatives

NoDerivatives means sharing Adapted Material is not permitted. Reproduction in a different format alone does not create Adapted Material under the 4.0 definition. Translation is normally an adaptation. Synchronising music with a moving image is expressly Adapted Material under 4.0. Whether cropping, excerpting, editing or combining creates an adaptation can depend on applicable copyright law.

Applying A License: A Complete Marking Workflow

Only the copyright holder, or someone with express authority, may apply a CC license. Confirm joint authors, employment ownership, commissioned-work terms, performer rights, samples and third-party inclusions first. A license notice should identify the work and creator, name and link the exact license and version, link the source where useful, and clearly exclude material not covered. No registration with Creative Commons is required. The official chooser helps create a notice but does not validate ownership.

Copyable notice examples for a photograph, a document and a dataset are provided below. Each uses the TASL mnemonic, title, author, source, license, as a starting point, but for 4.0 you must also add an indication of changes and preserve supplied notices. A consolidated credits page can be reasonable for many works if the work-to-credit mapping is clear and the credits remain readily accessible. Academic citation and license attribution serve different purposes; do both when both apply.

Third-Party Material: The Only Safe Approach

Possession of a CC-licensed copy is not a guarantee that the uploader owned all necessary rights or that every component is covered. Confirm your own ownership or authority for every element of the work you license. If a work contains samples, excerpts, photographs of identifiable people, or trademarks, the CC license does not grant permission for those elements beyond what copyright requires. Privacy, publicity, trademark, patent, contract and cultural-heritage law may permit or restrict a use independently of the license. Do not apply a CC license to a trademark as though it granted trademark permission, to material you do not control, or to a work meant to remain confidential. Check non-copyright permissions: people depicted or recorded, brands, data, location or property restrictions, confidentiality and platform rules.