Creative Commons licenses do not replace copyright. They are built to work with it. CC supports a copyright system that appropriately balances the rights of creators and the rights of users and the general public.
Creative Commons is a set of legal tools, a nonprofit organization, as well as a global network and a movement — all inspired by people’s willingness to share their creativity and knowledge, and enabled by a set of open copyright licenses. Creative Commons began in response to an outdated global copyright legal system. CC licenses are built on copyright and are designed to give more options to creators who want to share.
CC licenses are used as an alternative for creators who choose to share their works with the public under more permissive terms than the default “all rights reserved” approach under copyright. In addition to giving creators more choices for how to share their work, CC legal tools serve important policy goals in fields like scholarly publishing and education.