List of major Creative Commons–licensed works
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This is a list of notable works available under a Creative Commons license. There are multiple Creative Commons licenses, each with important differences.
Number of Creative Commons works
An analysis in November 2014 revealed that the amount of CC-licensed works in major databases and searchable via Google sums up to 882 million works. Nine million webpages link to one of the CC licenses.[2]
| Platform name | Number of works (rounded down by millions, November 2014) | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Flickr | 307 million | [3] |
| Wikipedia (all pages in all languages) | 111 million | http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias |
| MusicBrainz | 39 million | https://musicbrainz.org/statistics https://musicbrainz.org/doc/About/Data_License |
| Freebase | 39 million | https://developers.google.com/freebase/faq#how_big_is_freebase |
| DeviantArt | 15 million | https://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/35540 |
| GeoNames | 10 million | http://www.geonames.org/about.html |
| YouTube | 10 million | https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2797468 |
| Google Search | 301 million | google-currenttools.csv, google-retiredtools.csv |
Creative Commons offers also a search engine for major databases as: Europeana, Open Clip Art Library, Pixabay, ccMixter and more.[4]
Governments and intergovernmental organizations
Conditions of distribution
Below is a list of conditions ("rights") of a work's distribution.[7] All Creative Commons licenses grant "baseline rights", such as the right to distribute the copyrighted work worldwide for non-commercial purposes and without modification.[8]
| Icon | Right | Description |
|---|---|---|
 |
Attribution (BY) | Licensees may copy, distribute, display, perform and make derivative works and remixes based on it only if they give the author or licensor the credits (attribution) in the manner specified by these. Since version 2.0, all Creative Commons licenses require attribution to the creator and include the BY element. The letters BY are not an abbreviation, unlike the other rights. |
 |
Share-alike (SA) | Licensees may distribute derivative works only under a license identical to ("not more restrictive than") the license that governs the original work. (See also Copyleft.) Without share-alike, derivative works might be sublicensed with compatible but more restrictive license clauses, e.g. CC BY to CC BY-NC. |
 |
Non-commercial (NC) | Licensees may copy, distribute, display, perform the work and make derivative works and remixes based on it only for non-commercial purposes. |
 |
No derivative works (ND) | Licensees may copy, distribute, display and perform only verbatim copies of the work, not derivative works and remixes based on it. Since version 4.0, derivative works are allowed but must not be shared. |
Books
| Name | Original release | CC Release | Description | License | Refs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Art of Unix Programming | 2003 | 2005[9] | book about the history and culture of Unix programming by Eric S. Raymond (with added proviso) | CC BY-ND 1.0 | [10] |
| A Briefer History of Time | 1999 | 2004[11] | science humor book by Eric Schulman | CC BY-NC-ND 1.0 | [12] |
| Archimedes Palimpsest | 3rd century BC | 2008 | reconstructed and released by OPenn as Free Cultural Works | CC BY | [13][14][15] |
| Free Culture | 2004 | by Lawrence Lessig (the first CC licensed book released by a major mainstream publisher, Penguin Books) | CC BY-NC 1.0 | [16] | |
| Freesouls | 2008 | 2010 (digital ebook) | book with essays and photos of key people of the free movement by Joi Ito | CC BY | [17] |
| The Future of Ideas | 2001 | 2001 | by Lawrence Lessig (originally published by Random House) | CC BY-NC | [16] |
| The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It | 2008 | book by Jonathan Zittrain which discusses several legal issues regarding the Internet | CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 | ||
| The Honour of the Knights | 2009 | 2009 | A science fiction novel by Stephen J Sweeney | CC BY-NC-SA | |
| Meat Atlas | 2014 | 2014 | A collection of graphs and 27 essays on meat consumption and production by Friends of the Earth and Heinrich Böll Foundation | CC BY-SA | [18] |
| Move Under Ground | 2004 | A horror novel mashup by Nick Mamatas | CC BY-NC-ND | [19] | |
| Warbreaker | 2004 | 2004 | by Brandon Sanderson | CC BY-NC-ND | [20] |
| Little Brother | 2008 | 2008 | by Cory Doctorow | CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 | [21] |
| Open Access | 2012 | 2012 | by Peter Suber (published by MIT Press) | CC BY | |
| Blindsight | 2006 | by Peter Watts | CC BY-NC-SA 2.5 | [22] | |
| Code: Version 2.0 | 2006 | by Lawrence Lessig, dedicated to Wikipedia | CC BY-SA 2.5 | [23] | |
| Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy | 2008 | by Lawrence Lessig in describing the remix culture | CC BY-NC | [24][25] | |
| The Wealth of Networks | 2006 | 2006 | by Yochai Benkler | CC BY-NC-SA | [26] |
| Stranger Things Happen | 2001 | 2005 | short horror stories by Kelly Link, Salon Book of the Year | CC BY-NC-SA | [27][28][29] |
| There Is No Antimemetics Division | 2025 | 2016 | by qntm, originally released on the SCP Wiki and as a self-published ebook and paperback under this license before being rewritten and published by Ballantine and Del Ray. | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Comics
| Name | Description | License | Refs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bunny | by Huw Davies | CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 | |
| Diesel Sweeties | by Richard Stevens III | CC BY-NC 2.5 | |
| Erfworld | CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 | ||
| Gaia | by Oliver Knörzer and Puri Andini | CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 | [30] |
| Homem-Grilo | by Cadu Simões (pt) | CC BY-SA-4.0 | [31][32] |
| Jesus and Mo | religious satire webcomic by Mohammed Jones | CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 | |
| Johnny Wander | (the book publication form) | CC BY-NC 3.0 | [33] |
| Mimi & Eunice | by Nina Paley | CC BY-SA 3.0 | |
| Overcompensating | CC BY-NC 3.0 | ||
| Pepper&Carrot | by David Revoy | CC BY 4.0 | |
| Sandra and Woo | by Oliver Knörzer and Puri Andini | CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 | [34] |
| Seedfeeder's works for Wikipedia | by Seedfeeder | CC BY-SA 3.0, public domain | |
| xkcd | by Randall Munroe | CC BY-NC 2.5 | [35] |
Educational resources
| Name | Description | License | Refs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Connexions | academic course modules, hosted by Rice University | CC BY-NC-SA[a] | [36] |
| Khan Academy | CC BY-NC-SA | ||
| OpenLearn | Short articles, videos and extracts of courses maintained by The Open University | CC BY-NC-SA | |
| OpenCourseWare | CC BY-NC-SA | ||
| Saylor Academy | Peer-reviewed college courses and textbooks | CC BY | |
| WikiEducator | CC BY-SA (default), CC BY, and CC0 | ||
| Project Euler | Site hosting computer programming problems | CC BY-NC-SA |
Games
| Name | Description | License | Refs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cards Against Humanity | An adult party game using custom-printed cards | CC BY-NC-SA | [37] |
| Dungeons & Dragons System Reference Document 5.1 & 5.2 | The core rules of a popular fantasy role-playing game | CC BY 4.0 | [38] |
| Eclipse Phase | A transhuman science fiction role-playing game | CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 | [39] |
| Tagmar | The first Brazilian fantasy role-playing game fully developed in Brazil | CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 BR | [40] |
| Violence | A heavily satirical role-playing game inspired by excessive violence in other role-playing games and video games | CC BY-NC-SA 2.5 | [41] |
| Secret Hitler | A social deduction party game set in the Weimar Republic | CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 |
Video games
| Name | Description | License | Refs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead | ASCII graphic rogue like | CC BY-SA (artwork and code) | |
| DOGWALK | A game created as a proof of concept for a workflow pipeline between Blender and Godot. | CC BY | [42] |
| Glest / MegaGlest | A real-time strategy computer game in a fantasy setup. | CC BY-SA (artwork) | |
| Glitch | An MMO. In 2013, most of the artwork and parts of the code were released under a Creative Commons license. | CC0 | [43][44] |
| Mari0 | Super Mario clone mashup with Portal | CC BY-NC-SA | |
| OpenClonk (formerly Clonk) | A computer game originally developed by RedWolf Design, later opened to the community. | CC BY/CC BY-NC (artwork) | |
| Ryzom | Ryzom is a free and open source software PC MMORPG. Originally developed and released 2004 by Nevrax, since 2010 the source code is under the AGPL[45] and the artistic work is under CC BY-SA.[46] | CC BY-SA (artwork) | [46] |
| Sintel The Game | A game based on the Blender Foundation movie, Sintel. | CC BY | |
| The Adventures of Fatman | point and click adventure game | CC-BY-NC-ND | |
| Tyrian (now OpenTyrian) | Scrolling shooter | CC BY 3.0 US (graphic assets) | [47][48] |
| The Ur-Quan Masters (formerly Star Control II) | Action RPG | CC BY-NC-SA (artwork) | [49] |
| Yo Frankie! | A game resulting from a cooperation between the Blender Foundation and the Crystal Space community | CC BY 3.0 | [50] |
Images and photos
| Name | Description | License | Refs |
|---|---|---|---|
| deviantART | image artwork sharing website | various (15 million CC-licensed) | [51] |
| Flickr | user photo uploading and sharing service | various (350 million out of 6+ billion images were CC-licensed as of 2011) | [52][53] |
| Mapillary | Over 30 million free photos | CC BY-SA | |
| Metropolitan Museum of Art | paintings and artworks | CC0 (375,000) | [54] |
| Mushroom Observer | collaborative amateur mycology database with approx. 600,000 observational photos[55][56] | CC BY-SA or CC BY-NC-SA | [57] |
| Open Game Art | Media repository for software / game projects | CC BY, CC BY-SA, CC0, others | [58] |
| Panoramio | Over 100 million photos | Various | [59] |
| Pixar One Thirty | 130 textures created for Pixar films | CC BY | [60] |
| Smithsonian | Objects in the public domain and portions of metadata for all object entries | CC0 | [61][62] |
| Fortepan | archival photographs, and family snapshots of everyday life | CC BY-SA (100.000 images) | |
| Unsplash | user photo uploading and sharing service | CC0 prior to 5 June 2017 | [63][64] |
| Wikimedia Commons | free image and data repository, stores Wikipedia images | various free CC licenses (40+ million images in 2018[65]) |
Music
| Name | Description | License | Refs |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Slip | By Nine Inch Nails | CC BY-NC-SA | [66][67] |
| Ghosts I–IV | By Nine Inch Nails | CC BY-NC-SA | [67] |
| Palm Mall | By Cat System Corp. | CC BY 3.0 | [68] |
| Polygondwanaland | by King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard | CC BY-ND | |
| Airports for Music | By SheedyJaye | CC BY 3.0 | [69] |
| ccMixter | Community music website | mostly CC BY-NC | |
| Free Music Archive | Various | ||
| Freesound | CC0, CC BY, CC BY-NC and Sampling Plus | ||
| #hot111 Charts | By starfrosch | CC BY CC BY-SA | [70] |
| Jamendo | Various | ||
| Ninjam | Music files/archive | CC BY-SA | |
| Pulse of the Earth | By Hungry Lucy | CC BY-SA | [71] |
| Jonathan Coulton | Jonathon Coulton's works | CC BY-NC 3.0 | [72] |
| Paul and Storm | Paul and Storm's works | CC BY-NC-SA 2.5 | |
| Open Goldberg Variations | CC0[73] | ||
| Cloudkicker | By Ben Sharp | CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 | |
| Lud and Schlatts Musical Emporium | A project by YouTubers jschlatt and Ludwig to provide royalty-free music to creators. | CC BY 3.0 | |
| Castle Crashers soundtrack | CC BY-NC-SA | [74] |
News
| Name | Description | License | Refs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Al Jazeera's broadcasting footage | On January 13, 2009, some broadcasting content from Al Jazeera on the 2008–2009 Israel–Gaza conflict was released. | CC BY 3.0 | [75] |
| Dagsavisen | Released after one year delay | Creative Commons Non-Commercial (CC BY-NC) | [76] |
| Agência Pública | Online investigative journalism outlet with texts in Portuguese, English and Spanish. | CC BY-ND 4.0 | [77][78] |
| Corbeau News Centrafrique | French-language news site from the Central African Republic | CC BY-SA 4.0 | [79] |
| Democracy Now! | Internationally syndicated radio and TV news program. All transcripts from broadcasts are republished online and released under a Creative Commons license. | CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 | [80] |
| The Conversation | Online news outlet written by academics and researchers. Localised editions exist for Australia, Africa, Canada, France, Indonesia, the UK and the US. | CC BY-ND 4.0 | [80] |
| Deshabhimani | Malayalam language newspaper | CC BY 4.0 | [81] |
| Global Voices | International journalism organisation publishing in over 40 languages. | CC BY 3.0 | [82] |
| The Haitian Times | Online newspaper for the Haitian diaspora in the United States. | CC BY-ND 4.0 | |
| La Stampa | 3rd biggest newspaper of Italy. | CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 | [83] |
| openDemocracy | International online news website. Specific articles are released under a Creative Commons license. | CC BY-NC 4.0 | [84] |
| ProPublica | US news website. | CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US | [85] |
| States Newsroom | Network of 39 newsrooms reporting on U.S. state politics. | CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 | [86] |
| Tasnim News Agency | Iranian news agency publishing in Persian, English, Arabic, Turkish and Urdu. | CC BY 4.0 | [87] |
| TorrentFreak | News blog. Text licensed under a Creative Commons license. | CC BY-NC 3.0 | [88] |
| WikiTribune | News website with crowdsourced fact-checking, proofreading and editing. Published in English and Spanish. | CC BY 4.0 | [89] |
Knowledge, research and science
| Name | Description | License | Refs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Copernicus Publications | CC BY | ||
| Citizendium | a wiki encyclopedia | CC BY-SA | |
| Cliodynamics | Research | CC BY 4.0 | |
| Knol | Website for personal essays. Went offline on May 1, 2012, but was archived on the Internet Archive[90] | mostly CC BY-SA or CC BY-NC-SA | |
| PLOS One | CC BY |
Databases and data
| Name | Description | License | Refs |
|---|---|---|---|
| OpenSeaMap | CC SA-BY 2.0 / ODbL | [91] | |
| OpenStreetMap | Until September 2012; switched to ODbL | CC BY-SA 2.0 for certain content | [92][93][94] |
| SNPedia | Database of single nucleotide polymorphisms | CC BY-NC-SA | [95] |
Technology, blueprints and recipes
| Name | Description | License | Refs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arduino | CC BY-SA | ||
| DragonBox Pyra | pre-release schematics released in November 2016 | CC BY-NC-SA | [96] |
| Free Beer | In December 2004 brewing recipe, brand and label artwork released under CC by Superflex and students of the IT University of Copenhagen | CC BY-SA | [97] |
| Openmoko Neo Freerunner | CAD, schematics etc. files in 2008 | CC BY-SA 3.0 | [98][99] |
Video and film
| Name | Year | Description | License | Refs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Big Buck Bunny | 2008 | Product of the second Blender Foundation Open Movie Project, released in 2008. | CC BY | [100] |
| Code Rush | 2008 | 2000 documentary of Netscape's last year as an independent company, focusing on the rush to make Mozilla's source code ready for its release deadline.[101] | CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US | [102] |
| Dominion | 2018 | Australian documentary film filmed primarily with drones and hidden cameras inside Australian slaughterhouses and macro-farms with the aim to educate the public on an opaque and cruel system.[103][104] | CC BY | |
| The Yes Men Fix the World | 2009 | English language documentary film about the culture jamming exploits of The Yes Men. | CC BY-NC-ND | [105] |
| Decay | 2012 | Zombie film made at CERN | CC BY-NC | [106] |
| Elephants Dream | 2006 | Product of the first Blender Foundation Open Movie Project, released in 2006 | CC BY | [107] |
| Working Slowly (Radio Alice) | 2004 | 2004 Italian drama directed by Guido Chiesa. | CC BY-NC-SA | |
| "Life Wasted" | 2006 | by Pearl Jam in 2006, first music video from a major record label to be CC licensed | CC BY-NC-ND 2.5 | [108] |
| Nasty Old People | 2009 | A 2009 film in Swedish by Hanna Sköld | CC BY-NC-SA | |
| Paywall: The Business of Scholarship | 2018 | American documentary film documenting the high profits and business practices of the academic publishing industry and the efforts of the open access movement to reform it.[109][110] | CC BY | |
| RiP!: A Remix Manifesto | 2008 | a 2008 open-source documentary film about "the changing concept of copyright" and the remix culture[111][112] directed by Brett Gaylor | CC BY-NC-SA 3.0[113] | |
| Sita Sings the Blues | 2008 | feature-length animated film by free culture activist Nina Paley | CC BY-SA, later CC0 | [114] |
| Sanctuary | 2005 | A re-mixable Science fiction film | CC BY-NC-SA 2.5 | [115] |
| Sintel | 2010 | Product of the third Blender Foundation Open Movie Project, released in 2010 | CC BY | [116] |
| Spring | 2019 | Product of the twelfth Blender Foundation Open Movie Project, released in 2019 | CC BY | [117] |
| Star Wreck | 1992-2012 | Amateur movie parodies of Star Trek and Babylon 5 (in Finnish) | CC BY-NC-ND | |
| Tears of Steel | 2012 | The fourth Blender Foundation Open Movie Project, released in September 2012. | CC BY | |
| Where are the Joneses? | 2007 | online sitcom (series) | CC BY-SA |
Websites
| Name | Description | License | Alexa Rankings [118] | Refs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anatomography | CC BY-SA | |||
| Association for Progressive Communications | CC BY-SA | |||
| Bangladesh Fisheries Information Share Home | CC BY-NC-ND | [119] | ||
| Boing Boing | Popular blog | CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 (most) | ||
| Devopedia | An open community platform for developers by developers to explain technology in a simple, clear and unopinionated way. | CC BY-SA 4.0 (non-code content) | [120] | |
| Fandom | Since June 2009 | CC BY-SA | ||
| Identi.ca | CC BY | |||
| Internet Archive | Various | 170 | ||
| gnu.org | Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License | |||
| Mozilla website | Home of the Mozilla Project | CC BY-SA | 166 | |
| RationalWiki | CC BY-SA | [121] | ||
| SCP Foundation | The SCP Wiki is a collaborative urban fantasy writing website about the fictional SCP Foundation, a secretive organization that contains anomalous or supernatural items and entities away from the eyes of the public.[122] | CC BY-SA | [122] | |
| Stack Overflow | CC BY-SA | 57 | ||
| The Public Domain Review | Online journal showcasing public domain works. | CC BY-SA (unquoted text in collection posts and articles only) | [123] | |
| Uncyclopedia | Satirical online encyclopedia. | CC BY-NC-SA | [124] | |
| Wikimedia projects including Wikipedia | Since June 2009; over 80 million items | Text CC BY-SA (plus GFDL in most cases); some in CC BY and CC-0; hosted content also in public domain and various licenses. | [125][126] | |
| Wikitravel | CC BY-SA |
Notes
- All content published since 22 April 2026. Prior content was variably published under CC BY and CC BY-NC-SA.