License guide · Non-commercial license

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) is a public license published by Creative Commons. It permits sharing and adapting the licensed material for NonCommercial purposes only, with attribution, and requires anyone who shares an adaptation to license it under the same or a compatible license.1Fact reviewed Oct 8, 2026

SPDX CC-BY-NC-SA-4.0Read the full license textReviewed Oct 8, 2026

These notes restate parts of the license text so you know what to look for. They are not complete, are not legal advice, and do not tell you whether a particular use is allowed. The license text governs.

What the license text says

NonCommercial only: The grant covers reproducing and Sharing the licensed material, and producing and Sharing Adapted Material, "for NonCommercial purposes only" (Section 2).1
Meaning of NonCommercial: NonCommercial means "not primarily intended for or directed towards commercial advantage or monetary compensation." Exchanging the material through file-sharing counts as NonCommercial if no money is paid in connection with the exchange (Section 1).1
Attribution: When sharing, you must keep any creator identification, copyright notice, license and disclaimer notices, and a link to the material that the licensor supplies; indicate whether you modified it; and indicate that it is under this license (Section 3).1
Share-alike: If you share Adapted Material you produce, your license for it must be "a Creative Commons license with the same License Elements, this version or later, or a BY-NC-SA Compatible License," and you may not add terms that restrict the rights it grants (Section 3).1
Patents, trademarks, royalties: Patent and trademark rights are not licensed. The licensor waives royalties where possible but reserves any right to collect them, "including when the Licensed Material is used other than for NonCommercial purposes" (Section 2).1
Termination: If you fail to comply, your rights terminate automatically. They are reinstated automatically if the violation is cured within 30 days of your discovering it, or if the licensor expressly reinstates them (Section 6).1