Creative Commons licenses are several copyright licenses that allow the distribution of copyrighted works. The licenses differ by several combinations that condition the terms of distribution. They were initially released on December 16, 2002 by Creative Commons, a U.S. non-profit corporation founded in 2001.
As of July, 2011, Creative Commons licenses have been "ported" over 50 different jurisdictions worldwide. No new ports are being started as preparations for version 4.0 of the license suite begin.^[1]