When you find material with a Creative Commons license that you'd like to use in your own work, be sure you properly credit the source. Think about the questions this might raise such as:
- Who created the work?
- What is the work called?
- Where did you get it from?
- Why does it look different from the original?
- How can this work be used?
Example 1
"Pallas cat looking angry" by Tambako The Jaguar, licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0 license.
This is a good attribution because I answered the questions above, and provided links where I could to help people find the image, the creator's profile, and information on the license used. Since the ND or "no derivatives part of the license prevents changes to the work, I made no changes and had no changes to report.
Example 2
Higher saturation of color in "Penny snuggles" by Michaelrstern under a CC BY 3.0 license.
This is a good attribution because I answered the questions above, and provided links where I could to help people find the image, the creator's profile, and information on the license used. I also specified the way that I slightly modified the material.
Example 3
"Almost looks like a pencil drawing of Penny" by Paige Mann, CC BY 4.0 is a derivative of "Penny snuggles" by Michaelrstern under a CC BY 3.0 license.
This is a good attribution because I answered the questions above, and provided links where I could to help people find the image, the creator's profile, and information on the license used. Since I had permission to make significant changes to the material, I noted that I derived a new work from an original work and assigned a license to the work I created.