Creative Commons

Creative Commons licenses provide a standard way for content creators to grant someone else permission to use their work. YouTube allows creators to mark their videos with a Creative Commons CC BY license.

If you've marked your video with a CC BY license, you retain your copyright and other creators get to reuse your work subject to the terms of the license.

Creative Commons on YouTube

The ability to mark uploaded videos with a Creative Commons license is available to all creators.

The standard YouTube license remains the default setting for all uploads. To review the terms of the standard YouTube license, please refer to our Terms of Service.

Because Creative Commons licenses are for your original content, you cannot mark your video with the Creative Commons license if there's a Content ID claim on it.

By marking your original video with a Creative Commons license, you're granting the entire YouTube community the right to reuse and edit that video.

What's eligible for a Creative Commons license

Note that you can only mark your uploaded video with a Creative Commons license if it's all content that you can license under the CC BY license. Some examples of such licensable content are:

  • Your originally created content
  • Other videos marked with a CC BY license
  • Videos in the public domain
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