The Creative Commons licenses

Since the adoption of the OA Policy, UNESCO has released hundreds of its books with an open license, which are already available in this portal. More will be added over the coming months, including new publications and re-editions of existing works.

Most of these published works are offered under specially developed Creative Commons licenses that allow any user in the world to download, copy, distribute, translate, re-use, adapt, and build on them free of charge. The majority of UNESCO resources will be licensed under the CC BY SA license. The requirements of this license are:

  1. UNESCO is clearly credited as the owner of the original work, and
  2. derivative works may be distributed only under a license identical to the license that governs the original work.

Creative Commons licenses are model agreements. They are used to give the public the right to use a work protected by copyright. The fewer restrictions a licence contains, the better the licensed work can be distributed and used.

Some publications of the portal have additional licensing conditions, which are explained below:

Attribution-ShareAlike

Users can remix, tweak, and build upon the work even for commercial purposes. Any new works that use the original content must carry the same CC-BY-SA license. UNESCO must be clearly credited as the owner of the work.

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

Users can remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially and on the condition that any new works that use the content must also carry the same CC-BY-NC-SA license. UNESCO must be clearly credited as the owner of the work. Any use of the content for commercial purposes or in products that do not carry this license requires the written approval of UNESCO Publishing.

Attribution-NoDerivatives

Users can redistribute the works, for commercial and non-commercial purposes. UNESCO must be clearly credited as the owner of the work. Any re-use or adaptation of the content, including the use of extracts or the production of translations, requires the written approval of UNESCO Publishing.

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives

Users can download the work and share it with others, but they can’t change it in any way or use it commercially. UNESCO must by clearly credited as the owner of the work. Any use of the content for commercial purposes, or any re-use or adaptation of it including the use of extracts or the production of translations, requires the written approval of UNESCO Publishing. This license is the most restrictive of the 4 cc licenses.