THIS PAGE IS INTENDED TO BE HELPFUL, BUT IT IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE. IF IN DOUBT ALWAYS REFER TO YOUR LAWYER.

Using Creative Commons

A Creative Commons (CC) license is more flexible than the Open Game License (which predates CC by a couple of years) and is very commonly used in creative industries. It can be used to share your work, and it can be used to use and remix existing works (such as a System Reference Document). The CC license is currently on version 4.0, which is the version we are discussing here.

  1. If you are releasing work under a CC license, choose which version* of the CC license you are releasing your work under and include a statement of such with your work.

  2. If you are using existing CC content, give attribution by noting Title, Author, Source, and License.

  3. Declare a disclaimer of warranties and limitation of liability.

  4. If you are using existing CC content, note any modifications you have made.

*If you are using existing CC content, check if there’s a ShareAlike (SA) designation in the work you’re deriving from; if so you must use that same license version.

Some Definitions

There are six Creative Commons license types, each described by a series of letters. When you see content released under Creative Commons (CC) it will come with a designation which tells you what type of CC license is being used. It might look like this:

CC-BY-NC-SA (this is what the card game Cards Against Humanity uses).

Here’s what each element means:

Creative Commons (CC) this indicates that the work is released under a Creative Commons license.

Zero (0) means that no credit is required, and you can remix and sell the work. This is used to put works fully into the public domain. It’s known as CC0 or CC Zero.

Attribution (BY) means that you must give credit to the author, and you can remix and sell the work.

ShareAlike (SA) means that you must give credit to the author, you can remix the work but that new work must be released under the same license, and you can sell the work.

No Derives (ND) means that you must give credit to the author, you cannot remix it and must use it as originally presented, and you can sell the work.

Non-Commercial (NC) means that you must give credit to the author, you can remix it, but you cannot use or sell it for a commercial purpose.

Choosing A License

The six CC license types are:

CC-BY (credit required)
CC BY-SA (credit required, adaptions must use the same license)
CC BY-NC (credit required, non-commercial use only)
CC BY-NC-SA (credit required, non-commercial use only, adaptions must use the same license)
CC BY-ND (credit required, no derivatives or adaptions)
CC BY-NC-ND (credit required, no derivatives or adaptions, non-commercial use only)

And of course there’s also the public domain license:

CC0 (no credit required, work is now public domain)

For example, WotC released the 5.1 SRD under CC-BY-4.0 (the 4.0 just refers to the version number). That means that you must give credit to the author, and you can remix and sell the work. Unlike the OGL version of the 5.1 SRD, you are not bound by any kind of sharealike requirement.

Of course, you should read the license before using it, and consult with a lawyer if you have any questions.

There’s a helpful CC license chooser on the official Creative Commons website if you are unsure which license you wish to release your work under. It will also generate some text for you to use to clearly designate your work under that license.

Irrevocable!

Remember, a Creative Commons license is irrevocable. Once something is released under a CC license, it cannot be taken back.

Giving Attribution

If you are required to give attribution (as you are under nearly all CC releases except those attributed ‘CC0’, which is the version of the license which put works into the public domain) the creator might request how this should be done. For example, with its 5.1 SRD, WotC asks you to include the following text in your own work:

This work includes material taken from the System Reference Document 5.1 (“SRD 5.1”) by Wizards of the Coast LLC and available at https://dnd.wizards.com/resources/systems-reference-document. The SRD 5.1 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.

Attribution generally requires crediting the original work’s title and author, noting the source, and noting the license used. The acronym TASL might help you remember those four elements. If it was a piece of art you were using, for example, you might attribute it as:

‘Lofty Mountain’ by A.N. Artist, licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0, found at www.anyurl.com.

That includes title, author, source, and license (as does WotC’s requested attribution statement). If it’s online, you might instead embed a hyperlink rather than showing the full URL. The source might not be a URL, it might be the title of a book or some other material.

The license asks you to give attribution “in any reasonable manner based on the medium, means, and context in which You Share the Licensed Material” requested by the licensor. Additionally, if the creator asks you to remove any attribution elements (their name, for example) you must do that also.

Include Disclaimers

The license requires you to include a disclaimer of warranties and limitation of liabilities. This should point the reader towards the appropriate CC license in question. For example, WotC says:

Section 5 of CC-BY-4.0 includes a Disclaimer of Warranties and Limitation of Liability that limits our liability to you.

It’s Section 5 in all of the 4.0 CC licences, so you can just use the above text and make sure to replace ‘CC-BY-4.0’ with whichever version of the license you are using.

But what does that mean? This is the most ‘jargony’ bit of this page, so here’s a very simple explanation:

The Disclaimer of Warranties means that the licensor offers the material ‘as-is’ and makes no warranty regarding it, whether that be its accuracy, fitness for purpose, or even that they have the right to license it.

Limitation of Liability means that the licensor will not be liable for any damage you suffer from using the licensed material.

Basically, it means ‘on your own head be it’ — it’s up to you to determine whether the material has been correctly licensed to you. The licensor has bears no liability whatsoever! If you use content which has been incorrectly licensed to you, you’re the one who takes the hit, not the licensor. Do your homework!

Note Modifications

If you are distributing an existing CC work, you need to indicate if you have made any modifications to the licensed material in a reasonable manner, and if there have been previous modifications, include any such indication(s) also. This includes excerpts, for which you might say “This work is an excerpt of the original.” If you’ve modified an image you might say “Desaturated from original”.

Example Using the 5E System Reference Documents

Both the 5.1 SRD from WotC and the A5SRD from EN Publishing use CC-BY-4.0. Credit is required, and you can remix and sell the work. Assuming you are making a compatible work for 5E or A5E, here’s what you need to do:

  1. Choose a license and declare it with a line such as:

    [PRODUCT NAME] is provided to you free of charge under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License [LICENSE TYPE]. You are free to use this content in any manner permitted by that license as long as you include the following attribution statement in your own work:

    [INSERT THE ATTRIBUTION STATEMENT YOU REQUEST]

  2. Give attribution

    Include the attribution statement requested by the creator of the work you are licensing.

The credit requested for WotC’s 5E SRD is:

This work includes material taken from the System Reference Document 5.1 (“SRD 5.1”) by Wizards of the Coast LLC and available at https://dnd.wizards.com/resources/systems-reference-document. The SRD 5.1 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.

The credit requested for EN Publishing’s A5ESRD is:

This work includes material taken from the A5E System Reference Document (A5ESRD) by EN Publishing and available at A5ESRD.com, based on Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition, available at www.levelup5e.com. The A5ESRD is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.

3. Add disclaimers

Include the following line:

Section 5 of [LICENSE TYPE] includes a Disclaimer of Warranties and Limitation of Liability that limits our liability to you.

4. Note modifications

If you are redistributing licensed content, and you have modified it, note this. If you’re simply making compatible material, this might not be relevant, but if you’re taking SRD content and modifiying it, you should say so.