I'd like to give everyone a little bit of information about the Creative Commons options on DeviantArt. Seeing as we are a Creative Commons group, it's very important for everyone here to understand how these licenses work.
Most people just click the little radio button that says "use a creative commons license" and have done with it, but DeviantArt allows as little sharing as possible and is the very opposite of the intent of Creative Commons. If you leave the default settings on then your work will be very limited and not available in the free culture community. Since here, picking the right license is important, we encourage you to think about what you want to allow and change some of the default options.
The general gist of how the deviantArt creative commons buttons work in relation to your art is this:
- "Use a creative commons license" allows people to copy your work and share it, perhaps online or with their friends offline. With only this option submitted, your work may only be used in the original form without any changes and it may not be used commercially. This means nobody can make deviations based on part of your work and limit the people who can use the work. Please try not to stop at enabling only this one.
- "Allow commercial uses of your work" removes the non-commercial restriction and allows people to use your work in conjunction with any commercial enterprise. Most free culture groups (open source etc) don't allow non-commercial restrictions because it harms collaboration. As a rule of thumb if you don't intend to sell your work later on then you should allow commercial use. We have a gallery especially for this type of license, so if you're willing to allow people to use your deviation for their work projects, we'd like you to have a place in our special gallery and to thank you!
- "Allow modifications of your work" is very important. This means people may make derivative works based on your deviation. Without this ticked, nobody may use your deviation to create their own work. If your art has a very specific artistic integrity which is vital then don't allow derivative works.
- "Yes, as long as others share alike" means that anyone who uses your work must also make their derivative work the exact same Creative Commons License. This is the same type of copyleft license that Open Source uses to ensure that everyone, even businesses that use the work, have to play fair. It guarantees that the work will remain free culture. This is what Wikipedia uses.
Here's an example of a deviation which allows maximum freedom of use:
Screenshot of Creative Commons License on DeviantArt
So please, check your licenses, and share!
ok can someone help me out please: apparently my art is being posted on derpiburoo and i didnt give permission, i have checked my license and it cleary is set to defult with no shareing or anything as i want my work here only, can anyone tell me if iam doing anything wrong because my arts not being protected?
I don't think you're doing anything wrong. But these legal licenses are only legal constructs, not technical enforcement. Anyone can, without permission, take anyone's work because it's data, and the nature of data is to be copied and the way you see a thing on the internet is by making a copy which is then displayed on your screen. So there is just no way to stop these copies from being posted to places without your permission (technically speaking).
What Creative Commons licenses allow you to do, is give permissions which make copying legal. Rather than illegal.
What options you have with the website is to contact the website owner and ask them to take down the infringing work. If the infringer is the website owner, then you can ask their ISP to take down their website (they'll have a bunch of rules about when they'll do this, because such power to accuse others is very often abused)
You may want to get a lawyer and talk about copyright remedies in the age of digital media.
Thanks iam happy to say the person posting my art was decent and we resolved the issue without issues which honestly is a first normally people carry on like fools but yeah thanks again for this information it helps especially if something like this happens again
That's so good to hear! People are mostly decent people, but behave poorly when there is little risk to them (socially, economically or libertly)
Have you ever considered making one artwork Creative Commons as a gift to the wider society? It depends on how you feel about sharing, but it can be nice to have a piece with your attribution on it, posted to other places.
unless iam actually selling my art i dont allow use of my work, people are welcome to look as long as thats it, if i make prints and downloads available then they can go ahaed but iam a simple artist who is very attached to his work
I understand. Artistry is an important and worthwhile job and being attached is natural.
Social artistry isn't something that one should jump into without being at peace with sharing.
I may be stupid for asking, but I'm not good with understanding stuff like this.
I'm worried about having my art published onto another Deviant's page and some of my work has had this happen to them before. If I select "use creative license" but choose for both options to say "no," are people still going to be able to take my work and post it on their pages?
Would it be better to disable creative license on the art pieces I don't want people to copy? I totally support sharing work, but I don't support people stealing the hard work of artists.
Thank you a ton and I'm sorry to ask a weird question like this.
I'm worried about having my art published onto another Deviant's page and some of my work has had this happen to them before. If I select "use creative license" but choose for both options to say "no," are people still going to be able to take my work and post it on their pages?
Would it be better to disable creative license on the art pieces I don't want people to copy? I totally support sharing work, but I don't support people stealing the hard work of artists.
Thank you a ton and I'm sorry to ask a weird question like this.
So you can only use Creative Commons license for your original works because the license says "no derivative works" so does that mean I can't use that for fan arts and stuff?
Technically no, because you are the one who made by yourself which makes you the owner of the product
I did this years ago, and I just now thought about it. I hope I got this right because there's no way I can back track over all my submissions and remove the licensing. Too many. I want my content to just be copyright to me and nobody else can use or repost/reshare it.
I have mine set to:
Use a Creative Commons license? Yes
Allow commercial uses of your work? No
Allow modifications of your work? No
I have mine set to:
Use a Creative Commons license? Yes
Allow commercial uses of your work? No
Allow modifications of your work? No
I JUST asked this question too. I have set all my submissions to this setting, but thought that maybe this could be supporting people taking my art and reposting it on other places. Does this setting allow people to repost my work?
thank you for this! the creative commons license sounds better for me, since if your work is shared and someone likes it they can easily find you~ 
I am looking for the license fields on an image I'd like to use and it says "Copyright 2015-2018. It gives a download option. Is this free for uses?
I don't believe so, I'm not a lawyer and can't give legal advice but I if it says copyright and doesn't give you a license you can use, then you should assume it's not available for reuse.
It's a use of copyright. It's a way for you to give permission to people who you don't know, to your your artwork in ways that the law says are banned by default. It gets kinda complex at the edges, but the core of it is about sharing, collaboration and building a common good. Think of wikipedia, all the content on wikipedia uses creative commons licenses.
What about fan art stuff, like naruto or Harry Potter? If its fan art, and thus the character isn't really yours, can you even use a license? And what does it mean if you use one?
This goes into deep questions which only a copyright lawyer can really answer. I'm not one so my thoughts are my own.
But generally there are three considerations, one is a legally defensible fair use or fair dealing claim. There's all sorts of rules about how these work and why you shouldn't have to ask permission for these kinds of uses (news, education, parody etc etc)
The second is more of an economic one; what point is there from the creators point of view, to spend so much time being petty and annoying your paying customers? It's counter productive to attack your users, the music industry learned that, even though the entire industry had to change to cope with the technology, they couldn't get around hard economics by attacking their customers.
The third is perhaps the least stable, which is the moral question. Is it morally wrong to use well known characters for your own stories? If it is wrong, then turn it around the other way, is it morally wrong to benefit from and control what characters are popular and then deny the public it's ancient traditions to reuse story elements because of modern senses of property ownership.
None of this will stop you being sued however.
But generally there are three considerations, one is a legally defensible fair use or fair dealing claim. There's all sorts of rules about how these work and why you shouldn't have to ask permission for these kinds of uses (news, education, parody etc etc)
The second is more of an economic one; what point is there from the creators point of view, to spend so much time being petty and annoying your paying customers? It's counter productive to attack your users, the music industry learned that, even though the entire industry had to change to cope with the technology, they couldn't get around hard economics by attacking their customers.
The third is perhaps the least stable, which is the moral question. Is it morally wrong to use well known characters for your own stories? If it is wrong, then turn it around the other way, is it morally wrong to benefit from and control what characters are popular and then deny the public it's ancient traditions to reuse story elements because of modern senses of property ownership.
None of this will stop you being sued however.
Which one protects your rights to your artwork and literature more: The default license, or the creative commons license that you have to select?
All Rights Reserved is the most protection, it basically says no one can do anything with your work.
You can add a license from the upload page, it's an option right at the bottom. Alternatively you can declare the creative commons license in the comment body or on the actual work itself using one of the icons.
No, using most creative commons licenses means they CAN. These licenses are used to GIVE permission to other people, because the default copyright for all works is full protection. But often this full protection is not what we want as creators and giving permissions to other people is the best way to collaborate and operate in a community of artists and other creative types.
is there a way to update the cc licensing for all deviations?
younger me used the license without knowing what it does and i want to update all at once if its possible :0
younger me used the license without knowing what it does and i want to update all at once if its possible :0
You can go to "Edit" and then scroll down to "Publishing Options" and there you will see the "License" option 
Hi! I have a question: If I want to allow people to make fanart without asking me (as long as they acklowledge that it's fanart of my work), then should I choose "Yes" in "Allow modifications of your work"?
Thanks in advance!
Thanks in advance!
You should say yes if you want people to make fan works that use your work as a resource. If you want people to make completely new works that are fan works, then do nothing. No license or permission is really needed to make unique fan works in general. Because copyright only applies to your actual work, not to the ideas in your work. (I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, check with your own lawyer for real advice)
Hi, I understand now, thank you very much for taking your time to explain this and I will ask for advice here... well, here in my country we have an institution dedicated to this specifically, because generally lawyers that don't work there are a bit lost in this regard.
and I will ask for advice here... well, here in my country we have an institution dedicated to this specifically, because generally lawyers that don't work there are a bit lost in this regard. Educating lawyers about specific licenses does happen. Because a lot of them haven't seen these specific terms yet and they have preconceived notions about what copyright is for (which copyleft licenses like share-alike go against) so it does need explaining and that can take time. I understand.
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