Compatible Licenses

This is the list of licenses that have been approved by Creative Commons as compatible with the two Creative Commons ShareAlike licenses, CC BY-SA and CC BY-NC-SA. You must use one of the licenses listed on this page for your contribution when you make adaptations of material under BY-SA or BY-NC-SA and share the adaptation, unless your use falls under an exception or limitation to copyright. Below is the definitive list of permissible licenses for your contributions to adaptations, which depends on the particular license that covers the material you are adapting.

Creative Commons evaluates licenses for ShareAlike compatibility according to its published process and criteria. Any license that has been considered formally by CC under this process will be listed on this page, with unsuccessful candidates noted in a separate section. To read about compatibility within the CC license suite, please see our FAQ.

BY-SA

See this page for an explanation of how compatibility with BY-SA works.

Version 4.0

Your contributions to adaptations of BY-SA 4.0 materials may only be licensed under:

  • BY-SA 4.0, or a later version of the BY-SA license.
  • Ported versions of the BY-SA license (if any), version 4.0 or later
  • A license designated as a “BY-SA Compatible License” as defined in BY-SA 4.0.
    • GPLv3: The GNU General Public License version 3 was declared a “BY-SA–Compatible License” for version 4.0 on 8 October 2015. Note that compatibility with the GPLv3 is one-way only, which means you may license your contributions to adaptations of BY-SA 4.0 materials under GPLv3, but you may not license your contributions to adaptations of GPLv3 projects under BY-SA 4.0. Other special considerations apply. See the full analysis and comparison for more information.

Other licenses may be added to this list at any time according to the established process and criteria. Once a license has been added to this list, it will not be removed.

Version 3.0

Your contributions to adaptations of BY-SA 3.0 materials may only be licensed under:

  • BY-SA 3.0, or a later version of the BY-SA license.
  • Ported versions of the BY-SA license, version 3.0 or later.
  • A license designated as a “Creative Commons Compatible License” as defined in BY-SA 3.0.

Currently, no non-CC licenses have been designated as compatible with BY-SA 3.0. Other licenses may be added to this list at any time according to the established process and criteria. Once a license has been added to this list, it will not be removed.

Version 2.0 and 2.5

Your contributions to adaptations of BY-SA 2.0 or 2.5 materials may only be licensed under:

  • The license used for the original work, or a later version of that BY-SA license.
  • Ported versions of that BY-SA license, the same or later version as the licensed work.

Version 1.0

There is no compatibility mechanism in CC BY-SA 1.0. You must use version 1.0 for your contributions to adaptations of material under BY-SA 1.0.

BY-NC-SA

Version 4.0

Your contributions to adaptations of material under BY-NC-SA 4.0 may only be licensed under:

  • BY-NC-SA 4.0, or a later version of the BY-NC-SA license.
  • Ported versions of the BY-NC-SA license, version 4.0 or later.
  • A license designated as a “BY-NC-SA Compatible License” as defined in BY-NC-SA 4.0.

Currently, no non-CC licenses have been designated as compatible with BY-NC-SA 4.0. Other licenses may be added to this list at any time according to the established process and criteria. Once a license has been added to this list, it will not be removed.

Versions 2.0, 2.5, and 3.0

Your contributions to adaptations of BY-NC-SA 2.0, 2.5 or 3.0 materials may only be licensed under:

  • The license used for the original work, or a later version of that BY-NC-SA license.
  • Ported versions of that BY-NC-SA license, the same or later version as the licensed work.

Version 1.0

There is no compatibility mechanism in CC BY-NC-SA 1.0. You must use version 1.0 for your contributions to adaptations of material under BY-NC-SA 1.0.

Evaluated licenses not deemed compatible

None yet.