Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that helps overcome legal obstacles to the sharing of knowledge and creativity to address the world’s pressing challenges.
In order to achieve our mission, we:
- Provide Creative Commons licenses and public domain tools that give every person and organization in the world a free, simple, and standardized way to grant copyright permissions for creative and academic works; ensure proper attribution; and allow others to copy, distribute, and make use of those works
- Work closely with major institutions and governments to create, adopt and implement open licensing and ensure the correct use of CC licenses and CC-licensed content
- Support the CC Global Network, a community initiative working to increase the volume, breadth, and quality of openly available knowledge worldwide
- Steward the Open COVID Pledge, which calls on organizations around the world to make their patents and copyrights freely available in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Develop technology like CC Search that makes openly licensed material easier to discover and use
- Offer the Creative Commons Certificate, an in-depth course for people interested in becoming experts in creating and engaging with openly licensed works
- Produce CC Summit, an annual event that brings together an international group of educators, artists, technologists, legal experts, and activists to promote the power of open licensing and global access
- Support global Open Education and GLAM communities
Learn more about Creative Commons through our collection of public reports and financials. For information about CC’s funding agreements, please see our Contributions Policy. Certain states require written disclosures for nonprofit organizations soliciting contributions. CC’s individual state disclosures are available here.
