Home » Creative Commons Platforms

Creative Commons Platforms

Over 1 billion CC-licensed works exist across millions of websites. The majority are hosted on content platforms that provide CC license options for their users.

CC platforms make it easy for users to discover and collaborate on images, video, music, research and educational texts. We work with new and existing companies to transform their content platforms into vibrant, creative spaces powered by their community of users.

This page highlights some of the best known platforms for sharing CC content. Content on these platforms is searchable and shareable across the web thanks to CC licenses.

	flickr With more than 356 million photos, Flickr is the largest web platform for CC-licensed images. Flickr provides all six CC licenses, in addition to public domain tools for users that want to dedicate their work to the public, such as SpaceX. Flickr has one of the oldest and largest online communities for photo sharing that includes museums, governments, and individual photographers like Gage Skidmore. Start discovering CC photos at Flickr’s CC portal.
	Wikipedia With more than 35 million articles, Wikipedia is the world’s largest encyclopedia — and it’s all freely available online under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license. Wikipedia is collaboratively created by its community of editors through a system of recognition and checks and balances that is unparalleled by any other online community. The CC license has enabled Wikipedia text to be excerpted by Google in search results, in addition to translations and adaptations of content into different forms, such as Print Wikipedia and Wikipedia The Game.
	Vimeo Vimeo is a platform for sharing HD videos, and one of its greatest assets is its passionate community of video creators that share, comment on, and curate each others works. In addition to offering the full suite of CC license options, Vimeo provides a music store with CC licensed songs that can be synced to video directly on the platform. Vimeo is currently host to 5 million CC-licensed videos, which you can check out at Vimeo’s CC portal.
	Jamendo Jamendo is an independent music community and platform for artists seeking to discover and share new sounds, in addition to promote, publish, and get paid for their work. With nearly 2 million CC-licensed tracks, Jamendo is paving the way for other music sharing models that combine commercial programs with CC licensing. Jamendo offers the full suite of CC licenses, and you can start discovering CC artists here.

Enabling the CC license Suite for Your Users

Creative Commons Integration, from A to Z is a toolkit for content platforms that want to address the increasing user demand for sharing under CC licenses. The toolkit covers everything a platform needs to add the CC license suite, including aligning terms of service, integrating CC licenses into the user interface, and clearly communicating about the different license options for users. The toolkit is free for anyone to implement; please use it as an onboarding tool and contact us with any questions.

Content Collaborations: Light Up the Commons

For Creative Commons, the global commons is a platform for cooperation. The size of the commons is not as important as how (and if) the works it contains are used. Adding the CC license suite is just the first step in joining a vast global network of creators, companies, and institutions who are working to build context, gratitude, and other mechanisms for collaboration into the commons.

We work with platforms who share our values to design tools and services that light up this universe of content and creators. Part of this is working to increase cross-platform mobility of content; another part is tracking growth and use of the content itself and reporting on major trends in our annual State of the Commons report. In addition to growth of content and users, what is your platform seeking to do and how can CC help you do it?

Please get in touch if you are interested in any of the following:

• Improved search, curation, metatagging, and content analytics to better support creators and users of the commons.
• Providing data for a feature in our annual State of the Commons report.
• Development of tools and services that build context, gratitude, and other mechanisms for collaboration into the commons.
• Salons and related events exploring the topics of gratitude, cooperation, and its expression in social networks.
• Other collaborations that facilitate greater cooperation and engagement in the commons.

Platform Member Network

We are designing a membership program for content platforms that integrate the CC license suite and wish to be certified as meeting a certain standard of integration. The program will recognize and reward exemplary integrations and collaborations that further the discovery and usability of the commons. Platforms would pay for onboarding services, and membership dues would unlock access to an official network of CC certified platforms and additional CC services. If you would like to be involved in shaping this program, or otherwise learn more, please get in touch.