The Creative Commons licences

Since the adoption of the OA Policy, UNESCO has released hundreds of its books with an open licence, which are already available in this portal. More will be added over the coming months, including new publications and re-editions of existing works.
Last update:25 January 2024

Most of these published works are offered under specially developed Creative Commons licences that allow any user in the world to download, copy, distribute, translate, re-use, adapt, and build on them free of charge. The majority of UNESCO resources will be licenced under the CC BY-SA licence. The requirements of this licence are:

  1. UNESCO is clearly credited as the owner of the original work, and
  2. derivative works may be distributed only under a licence identical to the licence that governs the original work.

Creative Commons licences are model agreements. They are used to give the public the right to use a work protected by copyright. The fewer restrictions a licence contains, the better the licenced work can be distributed and used.

Some publications of the portal have additional licensing conditions, which are explained below:

CC-BY-SA
© CC

Attribution-ShareAlike

Users can remix, tweak, and build upon the work even for commercial purposes. Any new works that use the original content must carry the same CC BY-SA licence. UNESCO must be clearly credited as the owner of the work.

CC-NC-SA
© CC

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

Users can remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially and on the condition that any new works that use the content must also carry the same CC BY-NC-SA licence. UNESCO must be clearly credited as the owner of the work. Any use of the content for commercial purposes or in products that do not carry this licence requires the written approval of UNESCO Publishing.​​​​​​​

CC-ND
© CC

Attribution-NoDerivatives

Users can redistribute the works for commercial and non-commercial purposes. UNESCO must be clearly credited as the owner of the work. Any re-use or adaptation of the content, including the use of extracts or the production of translations, requires the written approval of UNESCO Publishing.

CC-NC-ND
© CC

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives

Users can download the work and share it with others, but they can’t change it in any way or use it commercially. UNESCO must be clearly credited as the owner of the work. Any use of the content for commercial purposes, or any re-use or adaptation of it, including the use of extracts or the production of translations, requires the written approval of UNESCO Publishing. This licence is the most restrictive of the 4 CC licences.

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