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ANATOMY OF A CC LICENSE - 57 -

The latest versions of all the CC licenses (and other tools) may be translated into official versions in other languages. Creative Commons has a formal process (see the Legal Code Translation Policy, licensed CC BY 4.0 and available at https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/Legal_Code_Translation_Policy) by which this is done in order to ensure that the translations are as close to the original as possible. Creative Commons’ goal is to get the licenses into as many languages as possible, so that everyone can read and understand the terms in their native language. The official translations are noted at the bottom of the legal code on all of the licenses and are equivalents of one another.

Many people ask about the relationship between the official translations and the English originals. All official translations are linguistic translations only, unlike ported versions (which are described in the text box below). The official translations are legal equivalents of one another, which means they have the same legal meaning and effect in each language. This is similar to how standards bodies such as the World Wide Web Consortium translate a single standard into many different languages, and how the United Nations publishes treaties.

Since the publication of Version 1.0 of the licenses in 2002, Creative Commons is aware of a relatively small number of disputes between licensors and reusers over its licenses, including the NonCommercial term and attribution. There may be several explanations for this state of harmony. As observed by Creative Commons in its “Defining ‘Noncommercial’” report (licensed CC BY 3.0 and