Creating OER and Combining Licenses

When adapting a Creative Commons (CCP) work to create a new work of your own, you may use resources that have different types of CC licenses. Combining works with different CC licenses can sometimes be tricky. There are four questions you will want to ask when considering adapting a work:

What are you allowed to adapt?
What adaptations can you share?
What licenses can you adapt/remix to create new works?
What license should you give your newly adapted work?

We will answer each of these questions below. But first, for an introduction to the issues, watch the following short videos on combining licenses when adapting CC works. The videos explain when you may encounter the issue of combining licenses as well as solutions for when you have questions.

Part 1

Part 2

License Compatibility for Adapting/Remixing More Than One Work

If you want to combine material in a way that results in the creation of an adaptation (i.e., a “remix”), then you must pay attention to the particular license that applies to the content you want to combine. Here are some basic rules:

All Version 4.0 CC licenses allow works to be adapted, including NoDerivatives works, however, you cannot share the adapted NoDerivatives work.
All the other CC licenses allow remixes, but may impose limitations or conditions on how the remix may be used.
If the underlying work is licensed under a ShareAlike license, then ShareAlike applies to your adaptation and you must license it under the same or a compatible license.
If you want to use a remix for commercial purposes, you cannot incorporate material released under one of the NonCommercial licenses.
In all cases, you have to attribute the original work when you create an adaptation.

The chart below shows which CC-licensed material can be remixed. The licenses across the top and side indicate two works you wish to remix. The intersection of the row and column indicate if those two works can be combined.

Combining two licenses

OK	OK	OK	OK	OK	No	No
OK	OK	OK	OK	OK	No	No
OK	OK	OK	No	No	No	No
OK	OK	No	OK	OK	No	No
OK	OK	No	OK	OK	No	No
No	No	No	No	No	No	No
No	No	No	No	No	No	No

Licensing Your New Adaptation

If you make adaptations of material under a CC license (i.e. "remix"), the original CC license always applies to the material you are adapting even once adapted. The license you may choose for your own contribution (called your "adapter's license") depends on which license applies to the original material. Recipients of the adaptation must comply with both the CC license on the original and your adapter’s license.

BY and BY-NC Material

When remixing BY or BY-NC material, it is generally recommended that your adapter's license include at least the same license elements as the license applied to the original material. This eases reuse for downstream users because they are able to satisfy both licenses by complying with the adapter's license. For example, if you adapt material licensed under BY-NC, your adapter's license should also contain the NC restriction.

BY-SA and BY-NC-SA Material

In general, when remixing ShareAlike content, your adapter's license must be the same license as the license on the material you are adapting. All licenses after version 1.0 also allow you to license your contributions under a later version of the same license, and some also allow ported licenses.

BY-ND and BY-NC-ND Material

The BY-ND and BY-NC-ND licenses do not permit distribution of adaptations (also known as remixes or derivative works), and prohibits the creation of adaptations under the pre-4.0 versions of those licenses. Since you may not share remixes of these materials at all, there is no compatibility with other licenses. ND licenses do allow you to reproduce the material in unmodified form together with other material in a collection.

So that you can easily see which license you can use for your adapted work, Creative Commons has produced an Adapter's License Chart that shows which license you can use on your adapted work. An adaptation of this chart is shown below, preceded by a link to an accessible text version. This table by Suzanne Wakim is licensed as CC-BY. Text-only version

Identifying the licenses of components usable for a final product with a given license
lincenses	final product license	final product license	final product license	final product license	final product license	final product license	final product license
components	OK	OK	OK	OK	OK	OK	OK
components	No	OK	OK	OK	OK	OK	OK
components	No	No	OK	No	No	No	No
components	No	No	No	OK	OK	No	OK
components	No	No	No	No	OK	No	No
components	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
components	No	No	No	No	No	No	No

Attributions

Creating OER and Combining Licenses Part 1 and Part 2, TheOGRepository, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported
Adapted from 4.4 Remixing CC-Licensed Work, Creative Commons, Creative Commons Certificate for Librarians, course content is offered under a CC Attribution
Adapted from Combining and adapting CC material, Creative Commons, CC BY 4.0