Attribution (copyright)



Attribution in copyright law, is acknowledgement as credit the author of a work which is used or appears in another work. The most fundamental form of attribution is the statement of the copyright holder's identity, often in the form Copyright (C) author's-name. The preservation of such a notice is invariably required until and unless a work has entered the public domain. Attribution beyond such a notice is sometimes required by licenses, such as the GNU Free Documentation License and Creative Commons licenses.

Attribution is often considered the most basic of requirements made by a license, as it allows an author to accumulate a positive reputation that partially repays their work and prevents others from claiming fraudulently to have produced the work. It is widely regarded as a sign of decency and respect to acknowledge the creator by giving him/her credit for the work.

Creative Commons licenses are legally binding in most countries and have held up in many court cases.