Open access

One of the foundations of the Creative Commons licenses and legal code is that they work within the copyrightlaw. Therefore, to understand how Creative Commons works, it is also important to understand the basics of copyright law.

Copyright law aims to restrict uses of copyrighted material by all others than the copyright holder or creator. For at work to be protected by copyright, it must by original. The work can build on the work of others but there must be a substantial added originality before the copyright law applies. Not everything can be protected by copyright, though. Facts and ideas are exempt although the expression of them is not.

In Denmark and many other countries, the copyright law takes effect immediately when the work is created. There are exceptions to this in some countries which means that it is always a good idea to check. While copyright law works on national level, some terms are standardized across nations largely due to the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works.

Besides copyright law, there are also other laws that will restrict use of some work. Notable laws here are the Trademark law and the Patent law.  Trademark law protects product icons and names and patent law protects inventions for a limited time granting the creator a time to benefit from their creation.

Not all copyrighted work is completely prohibited to be used by the public, however. These uses are largely dependent on the intended use. For example, it can be possible to use copyrighted work for teaching purposes or adapt copyrighted work in a way that makes is possible to be used by people with disabilities.

Some work, that is not protected by copyright and works where the copyright term has expired, will fall into public domain. It is also possible to transfer works to the public domain using the CC0 under the Creative Commons. Once a work belongs to the public domain use of the work is not very restricted. These works can be searched in different databases.