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Do I need to register my copyright? In most jurisdictions, registration is not required. However, for creators in the United States registration can be obtained and is advisable so that you can enforce your copyright in court. For US-based creators, you should check out the U.S. Copyright Office’s ‘Copyright Basics’ page, which explains more about copyright registration.

Is applying a Creative Commons license to my work the same or an alternative to registering the copyright to my work?

No. Applying a Creative Commons license to your work does not give you the same, similar or alternate protection to registering your copyright. Creative Commons licenses apply in addition to and on top of an existing copyright.

Do I need to register my copyright in order to use a Creative Commons license? No. Creative Commons licenses apply to works that are copyrighted. As a general rule, in most jurisdictions, copyright protection is automatic for those works that satisfy the requirements of copyright law. Generally, copyright attaches to creative and expressive works once they are fixed in tangible form, ie. the minute you put pen to paper, brush to easel, hit the “save” button on your computer, the “send” button on your email or take a photo.

Do I need a copyright notice to protect my work? You do not need to apply a copyright notice to secure copyright protection. However, a copyright notice can be useful because it clearly signals to people that you believe you own copyright in your work and who to contact.

Do Creative Commons licenses affect fair use, fair dealing or other exceptions to copyright? No. All jurisdictions allow some uses of copyrighted material without permission, such as quotation, current-affairs reporting, or parody, although these vary from country to country. These are not dependent on the license and so cannot be affected by it. To make this clear, all of our licenses include this or similar language: “Nothing in this license is intended to reduce, limit, or restrict any rights arising from fair use, first sale or other limitations on the exclusive rights of the copyright owner under copyright law or other applicable laws.” Thus, regardless of the jurisdiction a user is in, our licenses do not affect a user’s right to use or allow use of content under copyright exceptions.

What if I change my mind? This is an extremely important point for you to consider. Creative Commons licenses are non-revocable. This means that you cannot stop someone, who has obtained your work under a Creative Commons license, from using the work according to that license. You can stop offering your work under a Creative Commons license at any time you wish; but this will not affect the rights with any copies of your work already in circulation under a Creative Commons license. So you need to think carefully when choosing a Creative Commons license to make sure that you are happy for people to be using your work consistent with the terms of the license, even if you later stop distributing your work.

However, you should also think about exactly which elements of your work you are licensing. For example, in the case of a website, are you licensing just the text and images? Or also the stylesheets and the code that run the site? Similarly, if you make CC-licensed music available for download on your site, does the Creative Commons license apply to both the musical composition and the sound recording as well as any artwork and graphics at your site? And remember, as discussed under “2. Make sure you have the rights” above, you need to make sure you have the rights to each element that you license under a Creative Commons license.

Take a moment to think about exactly what you are intending to license and then frame your metadata and legal notice accordingly, eg. “All images at this site are licensed under a Creative Commons [insert description] 2.5 license.”

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