Whether you are a creator, researcher, or anyone licensing your work with a CC license, you might be wondering how it can be used to train AI. Many AI developers, who wish to comply with the CC license terms, are also seeking guidance.
The application of copyright law to AI training is complex. The CC licenses are copyright licenses, so it follows that applying CC licenses to AI training is just as complex.
The short answer is: AI training is often permitted by copyright. This means that the CC license conditions have limited application to machine reuse. This also means that using a more restrictive CC license in an effort to prevent AI training is not an effective approach. In fact, restrictive licensing may actually end up preventing the kind of sharing you want (like allowing for translation, for example), while not being effective to block AI training.
For the long answer, read our new guide that provides a legal analysis and overview of the considerations when using CC-licensed works for AI training.
š For an at-a-glance overview, head over to the Using CC-Licensed Works for AI training webpage.
This is an important question. As you've heard us talk about before, we're actively developing a CC preference signals framework to help bridge this gap. The framework is designed to offer new choices for stewards of large collections of content to signal their preferences when sharing their works, using scaffolding inspired by the architecture of the CC licenses. This is not mediated through copyright or the CC licenses. It is governed by something that tends to be even more widely adopted: a social contract. Stand by for the release of the paper prototype of CC preference signals framework at the end of June 2025.