Public licenses are a type of license where the authorization given by this license is provided free of charge to an unspecified group of people. The purpose of these licenses is to give authors the opportunity to grant the rights to use their works to the general public without having to enter into contracts with each of them individually. These licenses define the conditions under which this is possible – they grant some rights and reserve others for the authors.
This procedure is fully in accordance with Czech law, or with the provisions contained in Czech the Civil Code.
This does not deny the copyright of the authors, it just makes exceptions to it, when the work can be distributed. Authors attach information to their copyrighted works about the license under which the work is distributed, and anyone who meets the conditions stated in that license can use it.
It is important to note that public licenses:
- are made available to an indefinite number of persons,
- are offered free of charge,
- are given for the entire duration of the protection of the copyrighted work,
- may be used by anyone who uses the work in accordance with the license,
- are non-exclusive.
These include, for example: GNU, Creative Commons, MIT license, BSD
Creative Commons
Creative Commons (hereafter CC) is currently among the most widely used types of public licenses.
How does CC work:
- The terms and conditions of each license are expressed by 6 license elements, the combination of which results in specific types of CC licenses.
- Through the license elements, the author determines the manner and extent to which he wishes his work to be used.
- Individual license elements are represented by pictograms, so the license is internationally understandable.
The Creative Commons License Options (variants of licenses)
CC licenses come in 3 forms (“layers”):
- The full text of the license terms (called the Legal Code)
- The abbreviated version of the license terms (called the Commons Deed)
- Machine-readable version/metadata (called Digital Code) – pictograms in the works clearly show what CC license has been chosen for the work
More information: