Your favourite license will probably be CC0. Why?
Because the 0 represents the amount of work that goes into publishing this picture: zero. No linking, no naming the author: nothing. You can do nearly everything with this picture.
- CC BY: You may have to name the author, link to the source, state whether you have modified the material and that you have been given permission to use it. BY means: name the author, name the title of the picture, name the license.
- CC BY-SA: everybody who altered the product is allowed to share the result however they want, they need to link to the license, the usage of the altered product is only to be use under the CC BY-SA license, you have to name the author. SA means: share alike. Don’t change the license.
- CC BY-ND: you are allowed to use the picture but altering it is prohibited, you have to name the author. ND means: you are not allowed to change the content.
- CC BY-NC: you have to name the author; you are not allowed to use the product commercially. NC means: you are not to allowed to profit commercially from the content.
- CC BY-NC-SA: you have to name the author, you are allowed to alter it, you are not allowed to use the product commercially
- CC BY-NC-ND: you have to name the author, you are not allowed to use the product commercially, you are not allowed to alter the product
Step 2: Downloading the picture
Since we are not legal advisors and therefore can’t guarantee that this information is correct and the rules of usage might change, please check out the following link.